


Two Weeks

by shooting-stetsons (TheUniverseWillSing)



Series: Lion-Hearted Girl [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alexei too, Black Widow: Deadly Origins, F/M, I'm too lazy to do more than superficial research, M/M, Multi, PLOT TWIST: I don't care, Pregnancy, The Red Room, Though Ivan is based off of, alleged major character death, references to past pedophilia, so Ivan and Bucky are more my owntake, women can still be badass when they're pregnant and anyone who says otherwise is a dick on a stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUniverseWillSing/pseuds/shooting-stetsons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Black widow spider webs contain three deliberate structural levels: an uppermost labyrinth of sustaining threads, a central area of twisted threads, and a lower level of vertical trap weaves. These arachnids are surprisingly clumsy when not in direct contact with the web. When attacked, black widows drop from their webs to feign death."<br/>The Red Room returns for what is rightfully theirs: Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays! So here we are again, with the sequel to Lion-Hearted Girl! Updates will be once a week until the story is finished, then will be twice weekly as before. Please be merciful with me; the beginning is a little shaky until I get my sea-legs under me. Also this is the first time I've tried writing a romantic scene before, so I doubt it's any good but I hope it's at least not terrible.
> 
> Thanks for your patience!

In the seventy years or so since she'd last been pregnant, morning sickness and other irritations of the first trimester had fallen to the wayside and been forgotten in the gaping years. All there had been in the time between were missions, blood, and half-baked memories of a baby and husband long lost. Natasha was happy to have the chance for a family again, in the grand scheme of things, but it was hard to see the grand scheme when her entire life was zeroed in around the clammy toilet bowl and the sweat on her brow.

Clint padded quietly in and tied her hair back with firm but gentle hands. "How you feeling, sugar?" he asked as he sat against the wall.

She heaved for another ten minutes, spat into the bowl, and flushed before leaning back into his chest. Big hands wrapped around her waist, callouses rubbing against the bare strip of skin at her waist. Natasha pressed them down until dents sank into softening flesh in an attempt to ease the discomfort. It had been ten weeks and they hadn't dared tell the team yet, not when she had miscarried at nine just under three years ago. Didn't dare get carried away with themselves when they could still lose it. Two weeks before the greatest danger had passed. Two weeks to keep the secret their own, keep the hurt and fear safe within the walls of their home.

Turning her eyes into his neck, she made a small wordless sound of unease as an answer to his question. One of Clint's hands slipped free to push strands of stringy hair from her forehead.

"Bed?"

When she nodded he easily looped his arms under hers and pulled them both to their feet. With one arm around her waist he poured a cup of water and held it in front of her lips. "Rinse, or I'm not kissing you." She did, then shuffled back to bed because it was only 3AM. Morning sickness at a whole new level. Rolling onto her side, Natasha wound a leg between Clint's and fell asleep with her mouth crushed open against his side.

They were spies. Even if Natasha wasn't an active agent any longer her training would never leave her. And yet keeping such a secret from their teammates and friends was one of the most difficult things she and Clint had done in a long time. There were so many anxieties, so many worries and fears that any one of their friends could help them work through, so many times in normal conversation that they came close to just opening their mouths and letting it all come out, but they couldn't. It just wasn't worth the looks of heartache they would inevitably get if they lost it. A secret it would have to be until they were absolutely certain it was safe.

Now that the serum was gone, when Natasha slept, she dreamed. Normal things most of the time, normal dreams just like anyone else, but once in a while a nightmare of epic proportions slipped through. Visions of her bloody time in the Red Room, half-formed illusions of losing Clint or another teammate at her own fault, the usual things for a person with a ledger as red as hers. But that morning she dreamed of a life months down the line, her stomach heavy and round, sitting in the kitchen and cutting the baby out of her own gut with a butcher knife.

She woke up gasping and clenching the sheets, searching for blood and a swollen belly that of course wasn't there. It had only been ten weeks. Even if she and Clint had started noticing the slight difference in her figure - hiding it from the team under loose shirts - it was nowhere near her size in the dream. Sitting up and curling her knees to her chest while she was still able, she listened for Clint. He was showering, going about his morning routine while she slept, and Natasha was actually grateful. The last thing she needed was more time with a therapist. Her few mandated weeks after reverting the serum had been plenty, thanks.

"You feeling okay, Tash?" Clint called, voice muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth. "How's the kidney bean?"

Despite the breathless fear still clinging to her skin, the corner of Natasha's mouth curled upward. "Not a kidney bean," she replied. "And I'm fine. Getting breakfast on the group floor; I'll tell them you're coming."

"Thanks, Red Hots!"

Natasha rolled her eyes and treaded into the main room on bare feet to dig in one of the kitchen drawers for a phone book. It was old and really, she wasn't sure why Clint even had it, but she leafed through it until she found a number for an obstetrician in the neighborhood. A quick cross-reference through the SHIELD database on her tablet helped her eliminate most of the doctors in the book until she was left with four. That was when the shower stopped and she heard Clint getting out to towel off.

For a moment her heart jumped like she'd been caught doing something wrong. Clint padded into the kitchen with a towel slung low around his hips and scrutiny on his face, but she kept looking through the different files on her tablet.

"Thought you were going upstairs?" he asked, not accusing but curious as he peered over her shoulder, damp chest against her back. She felt his heart thud a little faster when he realized what she was doing and pressed a biting kiss to her ear. Wrapping his hands around her waist again, he gave her a little squeeze and murmured, "It's getting realer. Hitting a little closer to home every day."

"Really? Hit me pretty hard when the vomiting started," Natasha hummed, shutting her eyes and Clint's low laughter rumbling in her ribs. The last threads of tension left over from the nightmare slowly slid away, soaked up by the cooling droplets of water still clinging to his skin. Hands at her waist became arms snaking fully around her, the smell of his body wash, the comfort and strength and home that she had known for nearly ten years curling around the sapling in the pit of her stomach. She gripped his wrists and arched back against him before pulling up one of the files. "What do you think of this one?"

Clint leaned further forward, meaning she also had to lean to let him with their bodies pressed so tightly together. "I think you know better who you want up in your lady business, but she looks clean to me," he concluded after a few minutes of quiet reading. "Let me know when you make an appointment and I'll go with you. If that's what you want." He pressed a warm puckered kiss to her hair, then another behind her ear, to the base of her skull, and grinned when she shivered. His hands dragged up to cup her breasts and take advantage of how sensitive they'd been for the past week.

They were going to be late to breakfast with the team, but that was fine. Natasha twisted until her front was pressed to every line of his, her back suddenly cold in the absence of his warmth, and snaked a leg between his as she kissed him sharp and deep. His tongue tasted like spearmint. It was almost embarrassing how quickly she was reduced to a gasping mess, but Clint knew her well, knew every button to press and every soft spot to dig his broad calloused fingers.

The towel slipped from around his waist when he hauled her up onto the kitchen counter, pulling off her sleep shorts and pushing aside her underwear and gripping her backside for leverage. She gulped for air and threaded her fingers into his short hair, curling around him and hooking her knees over his shoulders when tongue and teeth went to play. She wasn't usually accustomed to dragging this out, years of conditioning making what was supposed to be a pleasant experience just another perfunctory chore, something to be taken care of for health and sanity then pressed aside to complete the mission, but Clint was the opposite. He took his time, enjoyed every second of it, every gasping moan he could draw from the back of her throat and every scrape of short fingernails against his scalp. It was like he thought he would win a prize or something.

His lips and tongue fastened over her clit, he slid his fingers up inside her, and she shuddered over the edge before even he could even move. "God, you're so sensitive like this," he groaned like it was a good thing, stroking her through the aftershocks.

It took a minute for her to catch her breath and loosen her legs around his shoulders, but she just gripped him for balance and slid to his waist from the counter, grinding against him until he carried her to the table, a lower surface, and slowly pushed inside with another groan. Her shirt was yanked off over her head, by whose hands they would never be really certain, and he laved at her sensitive nipples while she used her heels to pull him in closer by the small of his back. Electricity wound from her breasts down into the point of heat where their bodies joined and crackled. She yanked on the back of his head until he looked up and she kissed him, hard and open-mouthed, tasting herself on his lips.

"Do I taste different to you?" she asked, brow furrowed.

Clint smiled, sloppy and open-mouthed and his thrusts going a little uneven. "It's not unheard of for that to happen when you're pregnant," he breathlessly replied, eyes dark as he looked at her.

Laughing softly, she combed her fingers through his spiked damp hair. "Since when do you know that?"

"I never take on a new mission unprepared, Tash." Then he bit her neck until she forgot what day it was.

Just as he'd jerked and shuddered with his mouth fastened over what would be a livid mark by noon, the apartment door swung open and Tony howled. "Guys! How many times do I have to tell you?! Activate JARVIS's privacy mode and this won't keep happening, god damn!" he yelled with a hand clapped over his eyes as he scrambled for the door. Natasha buried her face in Clint's shoulder and grinned against his salty skin, smoothing a hand down his back while he recovered from the shock in the middle of what should have been a great orgasm.

They started laughing because they didn't know what else to do, sticky foreheads pressed together as they caught their breath again. "You okay?" she asked. "How's your pride?"

"Only a little bruised, but that's just fine," Clint chuckled, carefully pulling out of her and reaching for some tissues to clean up. "Y'know what? Let's just take another shower."

Honestly, she was just glad she hadn't gotten nauseous while he was down on her. That probably would have been an even bigger bruise to his pride than being walked in on mid-climax. Once she was certain her legs would hold her, Natasha slid to the floor and retrieved Clint's abandoned towel, slinging it over her shoulder and leading the way to the bathroom.

When they shuffled out onto the group floor twenty minutes later it was to Tony's shit-eating grin and Pepper serenely kicking him under the table while she nursed Maria, their ten-month-old. Actually, whether Maria was biologically Tony's or Bruce's was uncertain, but none of the three were in a rush to find out as long as she was healthy. The team didn't question the private lives of two of the smartest men in the world and the CEO of the world's highest-ranking international corporation. Especially not when it made them all so happy.

"Not a word, Iron Ass," Clint barked to Pepper's consternation, and they sat together between Bruce and Steve. Tony doubled over with silent laughter; it was Bruce's turn to kick him. Most everyone was finished eating but they had waited; Natasha was still getting used to the sensation of being wanted, sometimes. She poured a dry bowl of frosted shredded wheat and picked at it in her usual fashion while Clint made a bagel.

"I swear to god, you guys should _not_ still be having morning sex all over your apartment at this stage in your marriage!" bemoaned Tony. Pepper covered Maria's ears and shot him a look.

For a moment the words rolled to the tip of her tongue, perched and waiting to fly free so this burden would be off her shoulders, but she bit it back, barely. "Well, it's a special occasion," came out instead.

She and Clint met eyes and the room went still. One of his eyebrows twitched a question and she minutely curved her lip downward; now was not the time. Two weeks. They had sworn themselves that they would wait through the next two weeks before anyone else would know, and they needed to stick to it or their world could crumble. Natasha didn't think she could bear the sadness in their teammates' faces if they lost the baby before the highest-risk time had passed.

All eyes were on her suddenly, and it was clear that they knew but wouldn't dare believe until she said it, so she bit her tongue over the truth. "We were celebrating a different anniversary," she lied with a plasticine smirk, and everyone stiffly laughed. The tension in the room rippled and fractured apart.

Watching her intently, Tony narrowed his eyes but didn't press the issue. Instead he started building something out of a pile of forks and said, "Well next time, give a guy a little warning, would you? I think I went blind _and_ deaf."

"Because you've never done, seen, or heard anything worse before," said Bruce with a roll of his eyes. "Come on, let's protect your delicate sensibilities and go to the lab. Sorry guys." He patted Clint's shoulder in apology before pulling Tony from the room. Moments later Pepper excused herself to get to work, Maria happily settled on her hip. Bucky and Steve were left with them, and the air was thick with tension again. Despite the fact that Bucky had been well and on their side for well over a year, things with him and Natasha were sometimes still awkward.

Clint offered half of his bagel, holding it in front of her face so she had no choice but to smell the cinnamon and the hazelnut cream cheese. "Want some?" he asked with a full mouth and smug expression. He knew it was her favorite when her stomach wasn't rolling lazy circles.

There was a shadow in his eyes - _you're eating for two, now_ \- and she imperceptibly narrowed her eyes at him in warning. The last thing she needed was for Clint to nag her. Natasha knew her body and her limitations, and hell, she'd been pregnant before! She had carried a baby to term; just because Rose hadn't lived didn't mean that she wasn't familiar with the way pregnancy worked. He had no right to think he knew any more than she did.

"No thank you," she stonily said. "I'm fine with my cereal."

They stared one another down until her stomach rumbled and she turned back to the bowl. Bucky and Steve were studiously avoiding one another's eyes. "So, I hear Peter's going to be back from his trip in a few days," Steve finally said to break the silence.

Bucky leaped on the change. "Yeah, I heard that too. Vancouver. Nice. He, uh...went with friends?" he asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think his girlfriend."

"Oh. Yeah. Nice. That's good, kid deserves a break."

"I agree."

There was an audible crunch as Clint chomped down on his bagel and Natasha's stomach churned. She pushed back from the table and swept out as quickly as she could without sprinting. Clint's footsteps immediately followed her.

"Natasha! Hey, Tasha, wait up!"

Once they were gone, Steve and Bucky shared a look. "There's something wacky going on with those two, Steve-o."

"I know, Buck. It's best just not to ask."

* * *

When Clint's footsteps found her Natasha was on the balcony, clutching the safety rail and breathing deep and slow to quell her nausea. His hands softly closed over her waist. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked and she felt the air around her constrict like a plastic bag over her head.

"I'm fine, I just need two seconds to myself without you sitting on me," Natasha found herself snapping between breaths. Her hands tightened around the rail and she shut her eyes. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Clint. I'm just feeling sick." One hand smoothed over her back and she bowed her head, taking another deep breath as her stomach rolled. "I wish you would stop hovering, though."

After a few moments' thought he nodded and pressed a kiss against her hair. "Okay. You're right, sorry. I'm worrying too much. Just, you know, after everything that's happened. I don't want to see you like that again," he explained to the back of her neck. She knew what he meant; after the miscarriage in Bosnia three years ago the memories of her past, of her daughter being stillborn in the middle of a battlefield, and of the Red Room peeling her open to inject her with the super serum as punishment, had her reeling back and forth from the edge of nervous breakdown for almost an entire year.

Natasha leaned back against his chest as soon as she was certain she wasn't going to throw up her breakfast. "I know. I don't want to see me like that again either," she admitted, "but I need you to trust me to do what's right. What I know is right."

"I do trust you. Of course I trust you, I've trusted you for ten years. I'm sorry if I made you doubt that. We okay?"

"Yeah, Clint, stand down. We're just fine."

His smile curled in her hair. "You're gonna have to hound me on it, but I'll try to back off. I just wanna make sure I don't get in trouble for neglecting my wife, since you're doing all the heavy lifting an' all."

"Well, it's not like it's my first time doing some heavy lifting," she pointed out, and Clint's smile widened into a grin. "What?"

"Not with a Barton, though. We Barton men are acrobats."

She rolled her eyes and reached back to press a noncommittal slap to his face; it came as more of a fast push. "Yes, I'm sure it will be a very talented fetus. We'll have to make sure the sonogram only gets its good side."

"Mm, there'll only be good sides, since it'll be cute as a shiny new penny, too. Hey, Penny, that's...is it too soon to be thinking of-?"

" _Yes_ ," she firmly said, but it was too late. Her heart was already racing with the image of a girl named Penny curled against her side. Golden hair like Clint's when he was a child, big green eyes, and ballet classes every Thursday. Natasha clenched her jaw and beat it away. "Two weeks, remember? Invest nothing."

After a breath, he nodded, sounding a little thicker than usual when he spoke. The same images and thoughts had been swirling in his mind. "Two weeks," he confirmed. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied with her eyes firmly closed.


	2. Chapter 2

Things went mostly back to normal after that, only two nights later she had another nightmare, this time of being thrust upon a pike, impaled through her again-enormous stomach, and burned like a witch. Instead of just clenching the sheets she rolled to her feet and leaped right out of bed, curling into a protective ball around her midsection. Clint had to physically drag her up from beneath the window and back to bed. Her heart was pounding but she didn't let herself panic beyond the initial reaction.

He didn't ask if she felt alright, just sat on the edge of the bed in the dark ad quiet and waited until she could breathe again. Then he quietly asked, "Rose?" and she shook her head.

"Just a bad dream."

It was clear that he wanted to ask more, the words swelling in his eyes and the twist of his lip, but their conversation from the other day still hung over them and he held back. Gripped her hand until she quietly pulled herself together. One part of her was grateful. The other felt like it had been stretched too thin.

Peter was back when they went up to breakfast, showing off pictures he'd stayed up all night developing in the dark room Tony built just for his use. The glossy photographs were spread over the kitchen table while he explained them, glasses falling lopsided on his nose with enthusiasm. "There's Gwen and me on the space needle! Yeah, we took a ferry to Seattle for a day, did the whole Pike Place Market touristy thing, you know? Oh, Doctor Banner, Tony, there was a Science Fiction Museum too! We were in the XMP and the two buildings were attached, so I accidentally found my way in there and- wow, it was so cool! They had an entire wall mural dedicated to the different Iron Man schematic designs!"

"Who do you think paid for that?" smirked Tony. He didn't see the long-suffering look Bruce shot Peter over his shoulder. Maria hugged to his side, Bruce smiled fondly and plucked a warmed bottle from the table before circling around to take a better look.

Watching Peter anxiously fidget with the photographs of himself and his girlfriend, Natasha couldn't help feeling a little soft around the edges. He was physically no more than five years younger than her, but was in reality young enough to be her grandson. He could have been Rose's son, wide-eyed and blushing over vacation with his girlfriend, but instead he would be something like an uncle to her first living child. Natasha found that she was alright with that. Peter was a good boy.

A headache started to faintly pound behind her ears halfway through breakfast, but she kept her expression neutral as she listened to Peter's continued commentary. "Can someone hold Maria for a minute? I have to use the bathroom," Bruce said fretfully, and without thinking Natasha reached out her arms to take the baby. She had held Maria before on several occasions, but it felt different now knowing that soon she would be holding her own child, or that even sooner her lap would be too full to hold much of anything.

Maria's current favorite pastime was to stand on the knees of whoever was holding her, their hands supporting under her arms, and pump her legs as fast as she could for ten-minute stretches while shrieking. Natasha obliged her despite the headache and met eyes with Clint. He was beaming, of course, and the idea of the imaginary Penny occurred again until she pushed it away.

 _Fwip, smack, fwip_ , and Peter had his camera at hand again. "I don't think I've got a picture of you with the baby yet, Natasha. Do you mind?" he asked.

She carefully swept Maria's feet from under her so she was sitting on Natasha's knee, smiling at Peter so he could take the picture, then quickly put the baby to rights before she could start fussing. The whole affair took perhaps ten seconds. "Why are you wearing your shooters?" she asked as Maria set to bouncing again.

"Eh, never know when I might need something across the room. Or to entertain a small child. Hey, Maria!" When Maria swung around to look at him, Peter shot the crux of wall and ceiling and sprung himself up to stick there and grin. The baby stared, wide eyed, then a half-smile curled her mouth to Peter's chagrin. "I'll get her to laugh one of these days..."

When Bruce came back he smiled at the sight of them - Peter dropped lightly to the floor - then offered his arms to take the baby back. The only reason Natasha didn't offer to keep her longer was because Maria reached for him, tiny fingers splayed with infantile want, and something behind Bruce's eyes broke cleanly in two. It sometimes seemed that every single day the sheepish man was taken aback by the love he still felt he didn't deserve, and every day his patchwork family proved him wrong. Bruce pulled Maria back to rest against his heart and thanked Natasha. She nodded.

Before the mood could get maudlin, Tony spoke up from his seat and clapped Clint on the shoulder. "So, how about it, you two? Any hawklings in the spider nest yet?" he asked, grinning when Clint turned bright red.

Clint met her eye, and he wanted to tell so badly it looked like he might scream. Seeing Natasha with the baby had likely pushed him over the edge. "Not yet," she said, more instruction to her husband than answer to Tony.

"Well, don't be discouraged," Bruce said, reaching with his free hand to touch Natasha's shoulder. "Sometimes healthy couples can go years without conceiving, and sometimes teenagers who use three different kinds of birth control _and_ spend their free time kicking one another in the genitals get pregnant their first time."

She patted his hand. "I'm not worried, Bruce, but thanks." As if on cue her stomach rolled and the smell of breakfast made her want to go back to bed for the next three days. Pushing off her bowl, she curled her knees up and ignored Clint's looks until she smelled toast burning. Visions of smoke and the sensation of a pike stabbing through her gut returned; in two swift movements she was up and on her way to the bathroom.

In the time it took for her to finish her business - no vomit, just gagging and regret - the kitchen had emptied save Peter. He had clearly been waiting for her and quirked his eyebrows. "There's been a call. Some Hydra-looking activity in a warehouse a few dozen miles north of the city. Mostly weapons storage; Fury wants the team to safely clear it out," he explained. "Everyone's suiting up now. Meet at the Quinjet in five."

"Thanks, Peter," she told him, and hurried to the apartment to change. When she reached into the chest of drawers where she always kept her suit, it was empty. "Clint, have you seen my suit?" She turned to face Clint and found him already dressed and shifting awkwardly by the bed.

Her eyes narrowed before she even had cause to be suspicious. "I haven't seen it," he told her, but the lie sat shining in his eyes. "But, y'know...maybe you should sit this one out. I can tell the team you're sick."

"But I'm _not_ sick," she pointed out, arms crossing defensively.

A strange noise came from the back of Clint's throat, half choking and half laughing. "Well, no, but. Come on, Tash. You're pregnant."

"And?"

"And you shouldn't be out in the field like this."

She flung out her arms in frustration. "Like what? I'm fine. Just cut the shit out and tell me what you did with my suit."

Now it was Clint's turn to stubbornly cross his arms. "No."

Her hackles raised. "Excuse you? I don't need your permission," she growled.

"I'm only looking out for you."

"I don't need you to; I've been looking out for myself longer than you've been alive!"

As he reached for her shoulders it looked like he might throttle her first and she couldn't help cringing. Instead his rough blunt fingers dug into her soft flesh, and she knew he was fighting the urge to shake her. "Natasha, _please_ , this isn't worth fighting over," he pleaded with her. "It's just a routine job."

"Then it'll be old hat and I should be able to go without a problem," she pointed out. "We just talked about this two days ago, Clint, you're smothering me." She leaned into his hands and he pushed back in challenge.

"I promised not to nag you on little things, but this isn't a little thing. This is our baby," insisted Clint, his voice starting to rise with frustration.

Stomach leaping up into her throat, Natasha stepped out of his grasp and looked over her shoulder to make sure there was no one around to overhear. Once the coast was clear she rounded on Clint and hissed, "Will you keep it down?" with a thumb pointed at the greater apartment.

"Why should I? If you're willing to put it all on the line then I don't see why I should have to put so much effort into keeping it a secret." He shouldered his quiver with such ferocity that arrows flew out and hit the wall. It took seconds to replace them but his hands were shaking.

Natasha situated herself between him and the door. "Stop treating me like I'm disabled, Clint! I'll be fine if you just pull your head out of your ass!"

"Are you having like a mood swing or someth-?"

The crack of her hand across his face filled the room to bursting, but her scream of, " _Don't invalidate me!_ " pulled the plug in the drain and the silence's brief reign ended. Clint held his reddening face but watched her with steady eyes. "I am the exact same person I was ten weeks ago, just as strong, just as fast, just as capable of tearing apart any idiot who tries to stop me, and I would have made the exact same argument then as I am now. I thought you would be the last of all people to write me off just because I'm pregnant."

"I'm just looking out for my kid!" Clint argued, and she tossed her head back to laugh scornfully. "What?"

She shook her head. "It's just funny, how it's _your_ kid when you're trying to boss me around, but _ours_ as soon as I comply," she stonily said, arms crossed tight. "I thought you were a better man than this."

Rage flitted across his features. _Go on_ , she goaded in her mind, do it. _Strike out to hit me. I'll just block it and pin you like always and then you'll see how much of an idiot you are._ But he didn't do it. Of course he didn't. Because he was a better man than that. That, and the team came flitting in wondering where they were. "Guys, we were supposed to be at the Quinjet ten minutes ago, why hasn't Ginger Spice suited up?" Tony asked, arms spread.

Before she could turn to make an excuse, Clint edged around her to the team and spat, "Natasha's pregnant, and still wants to go on the mission."

Her face flooded with heat as the team practically gave themselves whiplash to turn and face her. She crossed her arms and stared Clint down rather than looking at them. Rage swam in her eyes and pulled on her until she thought she might collapse under its weight. They had promised each other not to tell and his betrayal burned in the pit of her stomach.

"Natasha," Bruce said softly to break the silence, "are you pregnant?"

"Ask me in two weeks," replied Natasha, flexing her arms. She broke off contact with Clint and finally faced them. "I can't find my suit and Tony, I think you were doing some work on my spare. Can I get it from the shop?"

Tony crossed his arms, frowning. "You lied to me," he said in a thick, dark voice. "I asked you this morning if you were pregnant and you lied to me. The fuck, Romanov?"

Running a hand harshly through her hair, Natasha forced out, "Clint and I agreed to wait twelve weeks before telling anyone; it's only been ten." Her head was pounding with frustration and her own stubborn pride, and even though she knew this was a pointless venture she couldn't stop herself fighting. The way they looked at her, like she was weak and something to be pitied, it grated against her nerves like sandpaper. Never had she expected her own team to look at her like that.

"Well, _that_ makes it all better," scoffed Tony, rolling his eyes. "Hear that guys? She's only _ten weeks_ pregnant! Looks like we don't have to give a shit. Let's just put her in a war zone if she's only ten weeks pregnant! Hell, let's just keep her going until she squats and drops the kid like those _asshats at the Red Room!_ " He was shut up by Bruce putting a hand on his arm and giving him a sharp look, then started pacing the apartment like a caged animal.

"Have symptoms been presenting themselves?" Bruce asked her gently. "Have you been feeling achey, nauseous, tired?"

Shifting, arms crossed, tense under their scrutiny, Natasha looked at the wall. "She's been all of those things, Doc," Clint sighed. "She was probably just getting sick in the bathroom when we were all called to go."

"That's irrelevant; I've been sick on missions before and nothing ever-"

"That's enough," Steve interrupted, his voice shockingly louder than she'd ever heard it before. Then it struck that he was angry. Not just at her but everyone, rage glinting like steel in his eyes. "Natasha, if you've been feeling under the weather, whether it's due to your condition or not, then you shouldn't be on a mission. At all. Not only are you putting yourself at risk, but the entire team for worrying and trying to compensate if you aren't performing as you should. We can't afford a liability, no matter what the assignment, alright? Bucky and Peter will be coming in your place and that's settled."

Silence took over the room again, crackling and filled with her indignant rage. It wasn't fair, they couldn't take her voice away just because she was pregnant. What she had to say and do still mattered. But...then again, they weren't trying to take away her voice. They were trying to protect her. Which didn't make her feel any better, but it made her think about it differently. "Fine," she gritted, and turned on her heel to return to the bedroom.

"Natasha-"

She slammed the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

When a few hours passed and there was no word, Natasha felt ready to climb the walls with anxiety. Even being mad as hell didn't mean she wasn't worried about Clint and her team. She took the elevator to the penthouse, still in her sleeping clothes, and sat with Pepper to watch for news. It was a covert operation that wouldn't be covered on TV, but it was still good to be close by in case something went wrong. Just go in, destroy the weapons stock, get out again, she reminded herself time and again.

"So...how are you feeling?" Pepper tentatively asked mid-afternoon, bringing in a bowl of vegetables to snack on from the kitchen.

Natasha glared at her and snatched a celery stick.

Heedless of her discomfort, the CEO plowed forward. "Okay, um. Listen. I know you're worried and probably feeling a little helpless, and I know the feeling. When I was pregnant with Maria I didn't think Tony or Bruce would ever stop hovering. It got harder to move, harder to breathe, even harder to _think_ on a few occasions. I was frustrated because it started to interfere with my work, but I knew in the end that stepping back a ways was for the best. Not only was I better-rested and Maria born healthy, but Tony and Bruce eased off of me too." She took a carrot stick from the bowl and, as if on instinct, shifted the baby monitor closer to her. They could hear Maria breathing in her sleep.

"It's about compromise," Natasha concluded.

"Precisely," nodded Pepper with a smile. She checked her watch. "You know, I should probably go and get Maria; her sleep schedule's been off since Tony started working on his latest project and I really want to get her on track again. Back in a minute."

While Pepper was gone, practically noiseless without her usual heeled shoes, Natasha curled her knees on the couch and munched absently on a carrot stick, swallowing back a sudden fit of self-loathing. When had she become someone who munched her food? Or even snacked between meals? When had she become the wife who stayed behind while the big strong men did all the fighting for her? If she weren't pregnant- but she stopped the thought right there and pressed a closed fist over her abdomen.

This was hers. And Clint's. She would never give it up without a bloody fight, and yet she couldn't help feeling like the timing was all wrong. For three years having a baby was - in one way or another - all she could think of until it threatened to consume her. Now it was happening she wasn't so certain. How could she, an assassin, a costumed hero (and she still treaded very lightly around that H-word), ever possibly have a family without constantly checking over her shoulder for the next threat? Now that she was a handler off active spywork SHIELD had loosened their hold on the right to censor her face in the press. The world knew her. Some days she was recognized on the street, even if the public still didn't know her name. If they could recognize and remember her, then how safe would any child of hers be?

Would she have to leave the life she knew and had come to love to keep her family safe? She didn't think she could do that. Even if the serum the Russians pumped her with had been reversed, Natasha would never really be a civilian. Nothing could reverse the deep-seated trauma of years of brainwashing and conditioning; who was to say she wouldn't inadvertently pass on that harsh way of living to her baby because it was how she'd been raised?

 _That's what Clint is for_ , she reminded herself, and simultaneously Pepper's voice whispered, _Compromise_.

Pepper was just stepping back in with Maria on her hip, the TV screen went white with a red symbol Natasha had never seen before, and alarms started to blare. Level 1 Security breach, JARVIS reported, and Pepper's face went stiff. Armed panels slid down over the windows and doors and a panel in the wall Natasha hadn't even known existed slid open.

"In here, quickly," Pepper instructed, making a beeline for the open passage. For lack of knowing what was going on she followed, then tensed as the wall slid shut behind them. It was a panic room, small but with enough floorspace for Maria to crawl around unhindered, a few shelves with enough food and water to last at least three days. Pepper set the baby down and she started exploring immediately.

Natasha wasn't so immediately adjustable. Small spaces were...acceptable. But only just. At least it was warm, or she might have had trouble pushing back memories of being locked in cryo for years at a time. "What's a Level 1 Security breach?" she asked instead of focusing on that. She watched Maria crawl and redirected her when she went too near the shelves.

Pepper grimaced. "It means there are intruders in the tower."


	3. Chapter 3

Four hours into their self-imprisonment Pepper’s phone rang and she answered with shaking hands. “Tony?” she asked, voice sharp and clear. The memories of her missed call during the Chitauri invasion three years ago were still fresh and swimming in her mind. Natasha watched her release the breath she was holding, sagging with relief, then tense again. She very carefully avoided looking at Natasha.  
  
Something happened to Clint.  
  
It was the first thought to whisper through her mind but she shoved it away, refusing to even entertain the notion until there was definite news. Pepper spoke quietly with Tony a few minutes more before turning to her. “They’ll just be another few hours with debriefing and clean-up. We’re stuck in here until someone checks out the building and enters the security code, namely Tony. I’m going to get some work done, but you should rest for a while, it’s been a long, weird day,” she said, brokering no room for arguments as she pulled a thin mattress out from beneath one of the shelves and tossed a folded set of sheets upon it.  
  
Despite her anxiety and the baby crawling over her knees, Natasha didn’t argue and managed to fall into an uneasy rest. She was chased in her dreams by giant cannibalistic infants and a cloud of white noise, frequently jumping awake with a little gasp, each time to a different scene: Pepper nursing Maria, Pepper texting someone about work, the bare wall, Maria’s face inches from hers with drool streaming down her chin. Feeling shaky and faintly ill, the shock brought Natasha shooting to sit up. Maria reached and Natasha took her into her lap on reflex. They went through the jumping dance again and Maria fell asleep shortly after with her tiny face shoved against the center of Natasha’s chest. “The Mom-pocket,” Pepper had affectionately coined it months before. Drool slithered down between Natasha’s breasts and she wriggled uncomfortably.  
  
“Want me to take her?” asked Pepper, noticing the fidgeting. It was a merit to her faith in the team that she didn’t bat an eyelash at a former assassin holding her only child. She took Maria before Natasha could reply, wiped the stray saliva away with uncovered fingers, then cleaned her hand on her skirt. It was disgusting and unclean and very, very tender. Pepper still cringed when Tony came out of the workshop and tried to kiss her covered in oil, but Maria could never disgust her.  
  
Digging her own fingers down into her cleavage, Natasha shoveled out the cold gooey trail with her nose wrinkled, wiping her hand on the edge of the mattress. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” she idly said with a nod to the shining stain.  
  
Pepper laughed softly so as not to wake the baby. “Welcome to parenthood, where no one knows what they’re doing and the points don’t matter. Go back to sleep, the others will be back soon,” she insisted, and Natasha complied because she still felt nauseous.  
  
This time her sleep was finite, heavy and warm like the weighted blanket she kept on hand when Clint was on missions and couldn’t lay half across her, for another two hours. Then she was woken by the hydraulic hiss of the panic room opening up and Tony’s voice asking, “Pepper, what the hell’s going on?”  
  
“JARVIS detected intruders and sounded the alarm,” Pepper explained without bating an eyelash. Her face was flushed with exhaustion and Maria limp as a sack of potatoes in her arms.  
  
Tony, divested of his armor, pulled the baby to his chest so Pepper could stretch her tortured arms. The couple exchanged a silent glance before he looked over Natasha. “You okay, K-19?” he asked.  
  
Climbing sluggishly to her feet, slower to wake than usual, Natasha nodded and hurried for the door. She had to piss like a racehorse. “I’m fine. Where’s...?”  
  
She trailed off in the living room, taking in the sight before her with hot air expanding in her chest. There were four bodies waiting instead of five, their uniforms charred and faces cracked with suppressed emotion. Clint’s bow was in Steve’s hands. The world grew fuzzy around the edges and Bruce stepped nearer, hand outreached, calming, supplicating, like he were approaching a dangerous wild animal.  
  
“Where’s Clint?” she asked in a whisper, side-stepping Bruce’s care and refusing to tear her eye’s from Steve. More Steve’s hands, closed around the bow’s sleek lines and angles. They didn’t belong there; they were too smooth and unblemished for raggedy Clint’s beautiful bow, the contrast was all wrong. When she spoke again her voice was as loud as if she were underwater. “Tell me what happened.”  
  
Bruce was too close behind her when he spoke and she flinched. So did everyone within her lethal reach. “There was an ambush. Rigged traps and explosions. The building caved in, and... We-we spent hours searching, Natasha, but...” His voice trailed off, stuttering with grief. She looked again and found the grief in every face and she knew. Knew that she had lost a piece of herself, had lost _the_ piece of herself. Everything that made her human, every reason she had ever been given to be human, the only reason she was still alive, gone.  
  
Every part of her, every nerve and muscle and fine little hair stood up and screamed, _No_. “Did you find his body?” she asked. The words echoed and rolled between her ears like an angry sea.  
  
“No...no, we tried, but there was so much rubble and it was too dangerous--” Steve began, but she cut him off.  
  
“Did you find blood? Brain matter, a limb? _Anything for me to bury?!_ ” she demanded, voice rising dramatically in a span of seconds. “Because if you don’t have anything for me to bury then you can’t be certain he’s dead.”  
  
“Natasha, we looked everywhere and--”  
  
“Found _nothing!_ He could have gotten out if you didn’t find him; we just have to go back and look again!”  
  
Bruce’s hands closed gently around her shoulders, holding her even while holding her at arm’s length, and Steve stepped forward at last, offering Clint’s bow like the sword of a fallen warrior. Her hands were trembling as she reached for it, because Steve was right even if he said nothing. Clint’s bow was an extension of his arm, as good as an arm, and he would never leave it behind if it were possible. Not in a million years. It may as well have been Mjölnir for how heavy it felt in her hands, and when Steve let go she sank like a stone in shallow water.  
  
“Natasha!”  
  
She was unworthy. They all were. Clint had been too good for all of them. Her body curled around her husband’s weapon as Bruce tried his best to fill the void cleaving her in two with his arms around her. Maria started crying so Pepper hurried with her to the nursery, sniffling into the shoulder of her sweater.  
  
All was still and silent. Then, entranced by the bow’s clean lines, her lips whispered, “But what about the baby?”  
  
The arms around her tightened, and Bruce’s returning murmur was savage with sorrow. “We’re here for you, Natasha. We are all here for you, no matter what.” He and Clint had been close. Still were close. Would still be close.  
  
She didn’t say goodbye or wish them well. She slammed the door like a petulant child. Their last words to one another were in anger.  
  
 _I thought you were a better man than this._  
  
Bruce’s arms were too tight and when she shifted he released her. Helped her to her feet. Hovered close like Clint would have done. Should be doing. Her hands tightened around the bow and she looked around the room with stinging eyes until they rested on Bucky. Bile rose in her throat. “Having two others at hand was supposed to make it safer,” she said through gritted teeth.  
  
Eyes flashing with hurt, Bucky looked at her with an apology forming on his mouth. She reared back and swung at him with the bow; he caught it easily with his metal hand, twisted, pulled her in and held her howling, “ _What good are you?!_ ” against his chest.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly into her hair as she fought. “I’m sorry, Natasha, I’m sorry, I know. I know.”  
  
“No you _don’t!_ ” Natasha yelled wildly. “ _No you don’t! You all say you know how horrible this feels but you don’t, because none of you have ever lost something like this! You still have each other!_ ”  
  
In that precise moment three seemingly unrelated yet inextricably linked things occurred to Natasha.  
  
 _Clint is dead_ , she thought.  
  
 _I can’t have a baby without him_ , she thought, and hated herself.  
  
Then, as the tower heat switched on, she thought, _Fresh paint_.  
  
Raising her head from the circle of arms, Natasha looked at the air vent beside her and felt Bucky turn to look at it too. “You smell that?” he muttered. He sounded just as far away as she felt in that moment; they had both been well-accustomed to the stink of it during their years in the Red Room, leaving warnings above the mutilated bodies of their marks’ loved ones. Natasha’s stomach turned as she nodded.  
  
They rose as one and Bucky touched the vent cover with his gleaming hand. “Tony, where does this vent go?” he darkly asked. Natasha’s body was still and stronger now, humming with purpose.  
  
“Uh...” Tony thought, brow furrowed with concentration.  
  
Then Natasha remembered a day over a year ago, Clint’s face lit up with suppressed laughter as he said, _Wait here and listen for the screams_ , before he vanished through the air duct in their apartment. There had been a crash and a bang and then Tony and Pepper simultaneously shrieked in alarm as he jumped out at them.  
  
“It’s our apartment,” she faintly said, and she and Bucky took off running. They scrambled up the stairs because the elevator was too slow, Bucky seizing her around the waist to catch her when her bare foot slipped in the rush. The apartment was still and empty, seemingly untouched, save the smell of fresh paint hanging thick and heavy in the air. Where...?  
  
Cupboard doors swung open at her hand and pieces of their home went flying. Canned foods, plates, cups, glasses, nothing was safe. Bucky was doing the same in the cabinets, sending pots and pans clattering to the floor like tinned thunder. “Found something! It says...” he called after a minute. «Look again, Natalia.»  
  
They followed the thick heady odor to the bedroom, where a rose the color of blood had been splashed untidily above the bed. _The sheets looked like a crime scene_ , and Natasha thought she would throw up. She sat on the floor and stared with Bucky’s cold hand between her shoulders. The elevator was whooshing nearer, and over the clamor in her head she said, “I need you with me, James,” and he leaned his reassuring weight against her back.  
  
“I know, Natasha. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
“Fucking Christ!” Tony yelped as he passed the threshold of the room, the rest of the team close behind. “You know, you could’ve just asked if you wanted to repaint in here. I would’ve called people.” The joked was weakly forced, anything to escape the gruesome sight of his good friend’s marriage bed looking like it was covered in gore.  
  
Hands closed around her elbows, under her shoulders, on her waist, held her hands, and her teammates gently pulled her back to her feet. Bucky explained what the rose meant under his breath while they moved as one body through the apartment. The Red Room made sure to know their marks as intimately as their own family before making a strike at maximum impact. Knew every weakness, every long-buried secret, every uneven score, every debt, and utilized them. In this case they used Natasha’s self doubt - _look again, Natalia_ \- the loss of Rose in 1945, her miscarriage three years before, and her greatest weakness of all: her husband. Whether Clint had died in that blast was flux now. There was hope for his life, but if the Red Room had him...  
  
Natasha was finally able to see something other than the rose in her vision back in the penthouse, releasing Peter’s crushed hands and wondering if he had shuffled backwards all the way there. “If we don’t find him, the Room will have the perfect marksman at their disposal,” she said, throat searing against the very thought.  
  
“I’m calling Fury right now; screw it being after 5, he can deal with a home call,” Tony growled and stormed away with his phone at hand. His voice even rooms away was loud with unsuppressed rage. Peter and Steve tentatively crept off to change back into their civvies while all was calm, leaving her alone with Bruce and Bucky.  
  
The couch dipped when Bruce set himself beside her. “Have you eaten since this morning?” he asked. He had a doctor’s voice now, one that sighed with concern when she shook her head. No wonder she had felt so tired and shaky in the panic room. Bruce vanished and soft sounds picked up in the kitchen. A cold weight settled between her shoulders again, comforting in its heaviness.  
  
“I thought the Red Room was gone,” she quietly said so Bruce couldn’t overhear. “If they’re back and are trying to tell me something...”  
  
Bucky’s metal fingers gently scraped over her back. “You know that they won’t let you go after him on your own.”  
  
She met his eyes with the question hanging heavy between them. He nodded. “Oh-four-hundred.”  
  
There was a bang as Tony swept back into the room, this time with an unexpected guest on his heels. “Hey, look who I found outside my window,” he announced with a tight gesture at Thor, who instantly stormed across the living room to Natasha’s other side, before rushing back to his phone.  
  
“I know not what has happened, only that Heimdall saw my presence was needed here,” said Thor, instantly winding an arm around Natasha’s waist and snugging her against his side. “My allegiance is to the well-being and happiness of my brothers in arms. Fair Natasha, what assistance may I offer?”  
  
Natasha liked Thor, and Thor liked Natasha. The first time he had told her that she reminded him of his wayward brother she had been insulted. It took a few times to realize that when Thor said it, it was because he still very dearly loved Loki, and was remembering the mischievous god as a child when he regarded Natasha in that light. Then it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her, and after a while she allowed herself to trust him as she imagined she would an older brother. Not with everything, but enough to lay her head on his shoulder in times of trouble.  
  
In his usual unabashed manner, Bucky said, “The bastards who scrambled our collective grapefruits took Clint. We don’t know if he’s still alive. Stark’s on the phone with Director Fury right now to see what can be done.”  
  
The massive arm around her tightened. A silent word of thanks for not mentioning the pregnancy bled from Natasha’s eyes to Bucky, who nodded.  
  
“Can we not simply hunt the scoundrels down?” asked Thor, his hand creeping up to hold her head. How light must he keep his touch to stop himself accidentally crushing her? And since when had she trusted him to?  
  
Tony’s footsteps returned, stuttering with anger. “Fucking Fury, fucking SHIELD, fucking fuckers,” he growled mutinously. “I told Fury what was going down, but his hands are tied. Or so he claims. ‘We need to approach this situation with caution,’ he says. ‘We don’t want to inadvertently start a war,’ he says. ‘Give Agent Romanov my sincerest apologies, and make sure she knows that we aren’t giving up,’ he says.” He snatched a glass from the bar then promptly threw it at the wall. “Fucker. Natasha, I swear to you we will find him. One way or another, he will come home.”  
  
“I know,” her mouth said without her mind’s consent. At some point she had curled sideways around Thor, her head too heavy to hold up on her own. The golden god was more than happy to assist, fingers tangled comfortingly in her hair. With a few encouraging nudges she was sitting with her back to him and he started inelegantly braiding her hair. Tony shot her an enquiring look and she minutely shook her head. Don’t tell Thor about the baby. Either he would go mad with grief or try to throw her a celebratory feast to mask it. It was just his way.   
  
“How long could negotiations with Russia take?”  
  
Shrugging helplessly, Tony guessed, “Months? You know the bureaucracy better than us.”  
  
After being Clint and Agent Torres’ handler for the past six months, yes, she had an intimate relationship with the complicated paper-lined inner workings of SHIELD. It was sometimes even more exhausting than going on actual missions, especially when incidents came up. Missions could be spread over days, weeks, months, but most paperwork was finished in an afternoon or more depending on brevity, so it was like living through the whole affair in a condensed span of time. Especially when she imagined Clint sticking his neck out when she couldn’t even be there to watch his back.  
  
Like today.  
  
Natasha gave herself another little shake and her hair fell free of Thor’s hands. “Fury’s right. The relationship between Russia and the US is tenuous as it is. If a government organization went screaming in and someone got hurt, it _could_ start a war or at the very least an international incident, which almost sounds worse to some people. And if a government organization tries bullying the Russian government into looking into the matter, it could start another arms race.”  
  
“So the government can’t be involved. Fine, the Avengers will go in,” Bucky scowled.  
  
“The Avengers are still seen as an elite task force for the United States,” interrupted Steve from the door, rubbing a damp towel over the soot in his hair. “Even if we aren’t technically affiliated with SHIELD any longer, half of us still work for or with them.”  
  
Bucky hunched his shoulders defensively. “So you need a free agent. Hell- _o_ sailor, I’m Bucky and I’m not an Avenger or a SHIELD agent, I just sleep here and eat all your food. I’ll go,” he offered. Natasha felt a surge of affection for him.  
  
“Even if we do take that route, we’ll need a strategy,” insisted Steve calmly. “We don’t know where these people are or what their plans are. We need more information before taking off with guns blazing. Let’s just...” His eyes flickered to Natasha with concern for her bleeding out onto the hardwood. “Let’s just make it through tonight first.”  
  
At first Natasha didn’t understand; if Clint was still potentially alive then why was Steve so worried? But then as the day aged and grew dark and Natasha felt his absence, felt herself missing him, she knew. She understood as the team formed a protective wall around her, holding the world at bay so she could have this time for herself.  
  
It was like being comatose again. She ate whatever food Bruce put in front of her without looking or tasting. Peter returned and instantly plowed into a halting series of stories about his first failed excursions as Spider-Man to keep her mind occupied on other things. It didn’t really work, considering that she couldn’t recall anything else about them. She was consumed by a maelstrom of feelings that she couldn’t sift through with bare hands. There was worry for the future, fear that the Red Room was returning for her, incandescent rage at nearly every party responsible for Clint’s disappearance - including herself for not fighting harder to be there - and reluctant grief.   
  
She didn’t want to grieve, because grieving meant that Clint was dead, and there was still a chance that he could be alive. It was small and fleeting, certainly, but there, and yet grief still threatened to swallow her.  
  
Sometime around midnight Tony brought a veritable mountain of sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets to the living room, and the team camped out there together. Natasha slept on the couch while music eked softly from the overhead speakers. All of the stupid songs Clint used to sing to her on missions, in bed, when she was sick, when she was healthy, when he was happy, when she was sad, and she buried her face in the supplied pillow so the team wouldn’t see her tears. They slept.   
  
At 0400 hours, three quarters of an hour before Steve would wake up for his morning run, Natasha and Bucky silently rose and left the penthouse.  
  
“What are you planning to do?” asked Bucky as she retrieved her spare suit (newly improved with some new material Tony and Bruce developed, and thankfully intact).  
  
Zipping herself in, Natasha flipped her hair from her face and fixed him with a look. “I’m doing what’s necessary to get Clint back before it’s too late. I’m going to defect from SHIELD, and I need your help.”  
  
It was a merit to his character that he didn’t protest for the sake of her condition, only nodded and followed.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sir, Agent Hill is on the line._  
  
 _Sir, the call is urgent._  
  
 _Sir, you really must wake up now. There is an emergency._  
  
With a groan Bruce awoke and rubbed his eyes as he turned his head to the ceiling. “What’s going on, JARVIS?”  
  
 _Agent Hill is calling to speak with Tony on an urgent matter, but he is apparently reluctant to wake, Doctor Banner. Could you rouse him?_  
  
“Yeah...yeah, sure,” replied Bruce. He rolled over and nudged Tony with his foot, then poked him in the ribs until he started awake. “Phone call for you. Agent Hill. ‘S urgent.”  
  
With a few choice curse words Tony slid out of their sleeping bag, squeezing Bruce’s shoulder before padding to the other room. “What’s up, Maria?” It was still weird that their daughter and the Deputy Director of SHIELD had the same name, but Tony was too tired to care at the moment.  
  
Hill’s face was hovering over his desk, looking mostly composed though her eyes were wide with what might have been fear. “Stark, we have a situation,” she began immediately. “Agent Romanov has gone rogue.”  
  
And god damn if that wasn’t a slap in the face. “How is that even possible? Natasha’s...” But wait. He sprinted through the living room in his mind’s eye, taking in all the secondhand details, and realized that shit, yes, the couch was empty and so was Barnes’ sleeping bag. They were gone but Tony had been too zonked out to notice a minute ago. “Okay. What do you mean, gone rogue?”  
  
“I mean, Stark, that she’s been here. She and Fury exchanged words over how he was approaching the situation with Agent Barton. James Barnes was here with her for support, he said...something to her. It must have been a trigger phrase none of us knew about when Romanov was brought in. We deactivated all of them, but when Barnes said it to her she changed. Pulled out a gun and fired warning shots at the agents. She took Barnes hostage to get out of the building and ran for it with her gun pressed into his neck. There are agents tailing her now to try and--”  
  
“ _Don’t touch her_ ,” Tony snarled, and wow, his voice was a lot louder than he expected it to be. “Don’t take her down, don’t immobilize her, if you’re thinking it don’t do it. Don’t even yell loudly in her general direction.”  
  
Hill’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”  
  
“You are _not_ excused. Agent Romanov may have just lost her husband to the people who fucked her over as a kid, she’s still recovering from a life-altering medical procedure, and yesterday she wasn’t on the mission with us because she’s ten weeks pregnant. She can’t lose this baby; as much as I know she’d slap me silly if she heard me say it...she’s been through enough. You will not touch her. You will not even approach her. This is going to be handled by the Avengers or by no one.”  
  
“You...realize that Romanov carries important knowledge of SHIELD’s inner workings, and that if her allegiance has changed, whether she’s pregnant or not has no bearing on needing her neutralized,” Hill said once she’d recovered from her momentary shock.  
  
Tony nodded once. “Give us three days and we’ll have her back,” he said.  
  
It looked like Hill would refuse, but after another moment of scrutiny she nodded. “Fine, Stark, I’ll put the orders through and forward the security footage. Get it done.”  
  
“Yes, _ma’am_.”  
  
“And Stark?” she added before he could switch off the telecom. He turned his attention back to face her. “Get Agent Barton back, too.”  
  
A blackened smile curled around Tony’s lips at the childish tone of Hill’s request. “Will do, Agent.” He treaded back out to the living room, where the team was waiting. They had by then noticed that Natasha and Barnes were gone, but of course hadn’t put two and two together yet. “Okay, so, according to SHIELD Natasha’s gone darkside.”  
  
There was a shout of alarmed protest and Tony held up his hands for quiet. “Not intentionally. She hasn’t betrayed us. Barnes accidentally triggered it; now he’s being held captive and Romanov could be halfway back to the Motherland by now,” he explained. “Hill’s giving us three days to get her home before SHIELD moves in to neutralize her one way or another. The security footage will be here soon, so let’s get some breakfast and regroup in, like, an hour, okay? I need a drink...”  
  
Instead of eating, Steve went down to the gym to pound out his frustration, stopping in the door when he found that the room wasn’t empty. “Peter?” he called, and the younger man turned from the punching bag with a weak smile.  
  
“Hey, Cap. Sorry, did you want to...?” With one hand he pointed at the bag. He looked so young, wide-eyed and uncertain around “The First Avenger,” that even twenty seemed a bit generous for his age in the moment. It didn’t help that he was skinny as a maypole either.  
  
Steve shook his head. “You’re just fine, Peter. Right?” he said, hesitant, inspecting the circles around the boy’s eyes. _Man_ , he corrected himself. Peter was a young man. But right now? He looked like a boy.  
  
“Ah, yeah, I’m fine,” replied Peter instantly and with a rubbery smile distorting his handsome face. He turned  back to the bag and gave it a few halfhearted punches. “It’s just...I...I feel _bad_.” There was a muted bang and the bag swung further with his frustration.  
  
With a gesture he managed to get Peter sitting beside him against the wall, sipping water and staring down at his feet. “Peter, this is in absolutely no way your fault,” Steve tried to assure him. “What Natasha said, it was only out of shock and grief. Any other day, any other mission, and she would be telling you so herself.”  
  
“I know,” Peter said, peeling the label off his bottle. “I do know that. But...you guys have known my secret identity for what, four months? And yeah, sure, I’ve done some work for SHIELD, but this was my first chance to really prove myself. It should have been fine, Natasha was right, I should’ve been able to pick up the slack, but instead I thought my senses were acting up because I was nervous, and now Clint might be--and Natasha’s--if I had just _said something_ \--!” His water bottle chucked at the wall and he webbed it back with a frustrated snarl, then started irritably fiddling with the shooters on his wrists.  
  
Watching him work, watching his long thin hands tweak at the gears, Steve asked, “Peter?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Why do you always wear your shooters?” he asked. “Honestly now, not what you said yesterday about needing something out of reach or making Maria laugh.”  
  
Peter’s mouth twisted as he thought. “I...feel safer when I wear them,” he admitted in a rush. “There’ve been so many close calls where something really bad could’ve happened if I didn’t have them. Not even major disasters or anything, just little things that can happen every day. What if-if Maria fell out of her high chair and no one was close enough to catch her? Or Aunt May fell down the stairs? Or, I dunno, if something’s about to explode in the lab and Doctor Banner’s too close? Those things are really unlikely to happen, but at least I’m ready if they do.” His shoulders jerked and Steve couldn’t take it anymore. He slung an arm over him.  
  
He sternly said, “Peter, before the bunker went up in flames, you didn’t say anything because you were already distracted by protecting Doctor Banner when shots were fired. You’ve already proven yourself well-prepared for emergencies, and did all you could have. No one blames you.” There was a long moment in which Peter looked like he might argue, but finally just shook his head. Steve sighed, knowing that he had done all he could as well, and gave him a little shake. “Come on, let’s have breakfast.”  
  
They ate in Steve’s apartment, just cereal, but after a few tense minutes started talking about their respective arts. That was how they passed the time until Tony called everyone back to the communal floor, managing to push away their anxiety and trepidation in the privacy of the apartment for that short time.  
  
“Okay, Hill sent me the SHIELD security footage, which should give us a pretty good grasp of what went down and in which direction Natasha went,” Tony began, fiddling with the TV controls until it connected and the image of a SHIELD office blinked to life onscreen. It wasn’t the Helicarrier - Natasha never would have made it back to the ground if it were - but a ground base a few hours west.  
  
Natasha, their friend and teammate, clearly agitated, was pacing the length of a conference room like a caged lion while Fury watched impassively. Finally she snapped, “Stop it. Stop looking at me like that. Just stop," and Fury lowered his hand from the holster on his hip. Slowly. No one had even noticed he’d put it there in the first place.  
  
“Agent Romanov, I understand that you’re upset, with every reason to be,” the director slowly said, his voice the epitome of calm. “You, however, understand exactly why we can’t go running blindly after Agent Barton.”  
  
“Director, you don’t understand. This isn’t just anyone, this is the Red Room. They wouldn’t kill him; that would be a mercy. No, they would peel him open and change him, like they did Barnes and me. Clint is the greatest marksman in the world yet you would allow him to fall into enemy hands?”  
  
Fury took a step nearer; she sprang back two. “I am not allowing anything, Agent. We need to take our time with this--”  
  
“So the Red Room can make their new Winter Soldier?” interrupted Natasha. “Because that’s what will happen if we don’t find him _now_.”  
  
The door swung open and Bucky hurried in. “Natasha, I could hear you hollering all the way down the hall,” he said.  
  
Rounding on him, Natasha’s muted snarl was barely audible until she was shouting. “ _I wasn’t yelling, I was only trying to make this idiot see sense! No one seems to understand that this isn’t a game, this is--!_ ”  
  
She was cut off by Bucky’s arms snaking around and holding her tight. “Calm down, Natasha, you need to calm down, this isn’t good for you,” he said in warning as they struggled against one another.  
  
In the penthouse, Steve sat up straighter. “Say, something smells fishy about this,” he said, but Tony shushed him.  
  
Bucky continued to fight against his ex-wife, murmuring to her words they couldn’t make out. “It’s Russian,” Bruce confirmed, listening very closely. Then Natasha screamed as though in agonizing pain, knees buckling, clutching her head; Fury started shouting down the hall for help and medical agents flooded the room. By the time they reached her she had resurfaced, changed, and drawn her gun.  
  
“Oh my God, that’s Sharon!”   
  
The specified blonde in the footage ducked shrieking when a bullet hit the wall directly to the right of her head. Agents scattered and more bullets flew and despite worrying about his girlfriend Steve continued to frown. “This isn’t right,” he insisted.  
  
“Yeah, we get it Stars N Stripes, it’s fucked up, but Bucky didn’t know what he was doing when he triggered her,” Tony snapped as Natasha wound a hand into Bucky’s hair, shoved her gun against his neck, and marched them slowly out of the building. The security cameras followed them, cutting from one to the next down the line until SHIELD-sanctioned security was moot; she shoved Bucky down an alley and vanished after him.  
  
The screen went dark. End of footage.  
  
Tony loudly patted his knees with the flats of his palms. “So. Okay. That gave us practically fucking nothing.”  
  
“Actually, Tony,” Steve interjected. “I noticed something.” Peter nodded along with him, having apparently noticed the same thing. “She was wearing her suit. They were both in their suits.”  
  
Instantly Bruce was on his feet and out the door. Thor’s eyes narrowed with confusion. “I do not understand. Why should a warrior of SHIELD not don armor to address a superior officer?” he asked, but Tony was already cursing and shaking his head.  
  
“Clint hid her suit, and I had the spare in my worksh-mother fuck, she would have had to crack the code on the door. Which really wouldn’t be hard for her, but she would have to want it really fucking bad,” he explained. “If she was so desperate to talk to Fury - and in the video she looked pretty desperate - she wouldn’t have gone through all that effort, she would have just worn her civvies.”  
  
From the door, Pepper added, “Especially if she’s started showing. It was hard to tell in the footage, but when I was ten weeks you wouldn’t have caught me dead in a skintight suit like that. Unless I had a really good reason.”  
  
“Like needing the extra flexibility to fight?” suggested Peter.  
  
“Something like that.” Pepper strode further into the room, heels clicking ferociously, and pulled up JARVIS’s holographic controls on the coffee table. “Cross-reference the SHIELD footage from her departure from the tower. How did she get James to go with her?” A few taps and twists later a new image was onscreen. At almost exactly four that morning Natasha and Bucky simultaneously rose and crept out in silence. No one even stirred.  
  
A new image, brighter, the hall outside the workshop, blinked to life. With Bucky watching her back Natasha cracked the code into the lab and slipped inside, returning minutes later in her suit and handing Bucky a small bottle that he put in his pocket. She put something in her mouth and swallowed, and they were on their way, likely to get Bucky’s suit from his apartment.  
  
Bruce returned from the lab. “The suit Tony was working on is gone,” he reported. “And-and the lock on my medicine cabinet was broken; a packet of anti-emetics is missing. Guys, this is _bad_ , those are seriously dangerous for pregnant women, they can cause birth defects and I doubt Natasha took the time to read that on the label, not if she had her mind set on something else. It’s not the first time she’s gotten tunnel-vision.” He rubbed a hand anxiously over his jaw, clearly distraught, and Pepper got up to put an arm around him.  
  
“Was the suit finished?”  
  
Nodding, Tony ruffled his own hair with nostrils flared in the studious effort not to freak the fuck out. “Yeah. I modified the materials so she’d be better protected in the field. It’s like a lightweight Kevlar, bullet resistant - not bullet _proof_ \- water resistant, more sturdy, more flexible, more distinct from the standard SHIELD outfit, she’s an Avenger, she’s earned her own suit instead of blending in...” he recited a little faintly.  
  
“And a tracking device in the collar,” he remembered suddenly, rushing into Pepper’s place at the coffee table. “I installed them in all of our suits after the incident with Cap in Grenada--remember that, big guy? Never again--there were still a few bugs to work out, but I should be able to pick up the signal and run a few diagnoses...” A holographic map rose over the coffee table with a little red hourglass blinking beside a red star. “She and Barnes are still together for now.”  
  
At the front of the room, Peter was looking over the SHIELD footage again with a hand wound tightly over his chin. “I don’t get it, if she was back to her old self, the ruthless super spy or mass murderer or whatever...why is she only making warning shots? Why not just get rid of all the witnesses?” he asked. “It would be easy, it was a medical team, medical teams are unarmed...but maybe that was why? It wasn’t a fair fight? But again, that doesn’t tie in with the whole Black Widow thing. I don’t get it, I don’t get it.” He started fiddling with his shooters again as he thought.  
  
“You believe the lady Natasha is deceiving us?” asked Thor, half puzzled and half offended on his friend’s behalf.  
  
Peter earnestly shook his head. “No! Well, I mean, yes, but. Not in a bad way. Like...she knew that if SHIELD had to wait Clint could be dead or-or brainwashed by next week because no one interfered, so she needed to manipulate the situation in Clint’s favor. She knows that we wouldn’t let SHIELD hurt her even if she’d been triggered, pregnant or not, she knows that the Avengers will take responsibility for her, so...” he trailed off awkwardly, realizing he’d just inadvertently referred to himself as one of the Avengers, and blushed.  
  
“She’s leading us right to Clint,” Steve finished for him. “She faked being triggered so only we would follow?”  
  
“Could be that, but let’s not rule out what’s already been given to us either,” Tony warned them. “Until we have solid proof to the contrary, Agent Romanov is to be considered hostile and extremely dangerous. Don’t even get me started on the hormones.”  
  
Pepper shot him a look and he clammed up. “Maybe you should focus on finding her. I have to get to a meeting; keep me posted, please,” she said, dropping a kiss on Tony and Bruce’s cheeks before slipping out.  
  
Once she was gone, Tony rubbed his forehead. “Okay. I need to finish de-bugging the communicators in Tasha’s suit. Please excuse yourselves a moment for a word from our sponsors,” he grumbled.  
  
As it happened, ‘a moment’ wound up being most of the day. Tony cursed and snapped as he prowled the penthouse with tablet in hand, trying to de-bug the suit’s programming from a hundred miles away with a spotty connection. Bruce tried to help in any way he could for the first hour or so, but had to excuse himself shortly after because everyone was getting so agitated with one another. Namely Thor was the source of the trouble, asking every half hour if the job was done before Tony started screaming that if he thought he could do any better he was welcome to take a shot. Steve lured him out of the penthouse for a break.  
  
Finally, almost five hours after he started, there was a crackle over the penthouse speakers; Tony let out a ‘WOO!’ that lasted nearly forty-five seconds and had to sit down for a few minutes before he got too dizzy and fainted. They all reassembled in the living room to listen in as Steve took the reins. It was set on Bucky’s communicator instead of Natasha’s, in case she really was hostile.  
  
“Winter Soldier, this is Captain America, do you copy? Repeat, Captain America for Winter Soldier, copy,” Steve said into the communicator salvaged from his apartment.  
  
Another pop and crackle, then the fuzzy sounds of clothes rustling. “Captain?” Bucky whispered. “How did you do that?” They heard the faint background murmur of Natasha’s voice.  
  
Steve nodded and smiled at his teammates as they all slumped in relief. “You’re going to be alright, soldier. Do you know your current location? Can you slip away?” he asked.  
  
“No,” replied Bucky instantly. “I’m just a few feet away from her, I don’t know how she hasn’t--”  
  
There was another rustle of moving clothes, and the soft indecipherable murmur of Natasha’s voice was suddenly crystal clear and loud over the speakers. “Who is this?” she demanded. Even though her accent hadn’t changed there was a distinct...shift, in her voice. It was heavy and dark like a thick blanket, the blunt edge of a blade, flashing a warning before the pain came.  
  
Steve looked up at met Tony’s eye. This hadn’t been part of the plan, but Tony waved him on regardless. “This is Captain America. I’m directing a negotiation with you unsanctioned by SHIELD."  
  
"I'm not returning the Winter Soldier. He doesn't belong to you," Natasha snarled back.   
  
"Well, he isn't yours either, ma'am."  
  
"He owes his life to our fathers! He owes them everything he can spare all the way to his bones, and if you think otherwise, _Captain_ \--"  
  
Tony snatched the comm away. "We don't want the Soldier. This is Iron Man, and I will procure you anything if you immediately stop taking the pills you stole from Doctor Banner's cabinet." His voice was dark and held no room for argument.   
  
Then again, if anyone could defy that, it was the Black Widow. "Why?"  
  
"They cause birth defects."  
  
There was a long pause on the other end. “What does this matter to me?” Natasha finally asked, but there was something shivering and broken in her voice. Even if she was the Black Widow, the Red Room’s indestructible weapon without any memory of being Natasha, she would still remember what happened before the serum. She would still remember wanting Rose.  
  
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose but controlled his irritation. “You’re pregnant, Widow,” he warned her. “Did the trigger make you stupid, too? You don’t have the super serum anymore, you can have this baby safely as long as you stay away from them and don’t act like an idiot. You remember what the Red Room did to you when you were pregnant with Rose; they’ll do it again if they find out. You know they will.”  
  
“I won’t turn my back on my fathers again,” Natasha growled, but then paused with thought. “I want two communicators unattached to our suits or to you, Stark. And food. I’ll stop taking the pills. Come at midnight. Come alone.” There was another crackle and Bucky’s signal vanished from the map.  
  
The penthouse was silent until Tony cleared his throat. “Well. I’d better suit up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. You're liking the story so far, right? I hate to be That Guy, ubutI've only heard feedback from a few of you and I'm not sure if anyone else is even into this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much for the comments, everyone! Even just a few words really encourages creativity. I've finally finished this, so I'll be updating Every Monday AND Thursday now.

As soon as they were clear of the SHIELD security cameras, Natasha hit herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. "Oh my _god_ , I shot at Sharon!" she groaned. The pills she took from Banner's lab weren't working; she felt more nauseated than ever. Of course, that could have just been shock at recognizing Sharon's scream sinking in. She leaned against a trash can and choked up bile, wrinkling her nose unhappily when she spotted the pills half-dissolved on the ground.

Bucky put a hand on her back, attempting comfort, but then the sound of footsteps approached and all pretenses of gentleness were gone. He hauled her upright and they ran, slipping through the crowds with long-practiced ease before picking into the back of a thrift store. They pulled stolen jackets over their armored suits and turned up the hoods to hide their faces. Bucky had to put on gloves to cover his mechanical hand. After that, walking unnoticed was easy.

"We look goofy in these coats; it's only Fall," grumbled Bucky.

Natasha looked around but didn't notice any skeptical looks. "We're from Texas. It's our first cool Autumn, of course we're going to be bundled up," she replied, adding a subtle accent to her voice.

"Aw, I hate doin' accents."

"Then your parents were from Brooklyn! Stop being a baby and _adapt_."

They didn't even need covers in the end, no one stopped them, but they were always good to have around in case of an emergency. It took less than two minutes to pick up a car left open four miles outside of the city, and then they were driving north. "Do you even know where we're going?" Bucky asked once they had been driving for an hour and the city was far behind them.

Natasha shook her head to clear it and took a deep breath. "I used to have a contact here, back when I was a free agent. He fled Russia in '89, offered to take me with him. It was sweet but I was too hard for that kind of sentimentality back then." She felt Bucky's eyes on her and bristled, "What?"

He was grinning an she could feel that too. It was massively annoying. "So you admit that you're soft? I think that's a first for you," he ribbed her.

"I'm not soft, I'm just not as hard as I used to be," corrected Natasha with a scathing look. "If I were soft, I would be at home crying, doing nothing, but I'm still hard enough to fight."

Bucky watched her for a long while in total silence. "You know, you were wrong when you said I didn't know how this feels," he said after a few minutes. "When I was him - the Soldier - when I woke up from cryo and found everything in ruins, Ivan's body, your chamber broken and you, lying unconscious inside...I thought you were dead." He swallowed hard and looked out the window.

"Did you mourn me?"

"Yeah. I did. I loved you, I really did."

A spike of something sharp and hot slithered down her throat. "The Soldier loved the Widow," she said firmly. "There's a difference."

"Maybe," shrugged Bucky, looking very young in that moment. "But you know what, Tasha? If there'd never been no war, if I was just a guy and you were just a dame, I think I coulda loved you like that, too. You and I-the Widow and the Soldier-they were...they loved each other like a house burning down. They loved each other like-like a brand new set of jewel-encrusted knives. It was like...tearing down the rainforest just to see what all the hubbub was about."

Her hands tightened of their own volition around the steering wheel, eyes affixed on the road as one feeling after another chased their way through her gut. Even though Bucky's metaphors made little to no sense she somehow understood. Some days it felt like her emotions and body weren't her own anymore. Not like when she was under the Red Room's thumb, not with a sense of horrified disgust, but in a way that came with a reward. Her body was changing every day and would continue to change and then she would have something brand new, that belonged only to her and Clint and no one else, something untarnished by the twisted web of lies she had been raised in. She would make it good, this time, to make up for the time that she couldn't. This was her atonement for losing Rose.

"What about you?"

"Hm?" she asked, distracted. "What about me?"

Clearly uncomfortable, Bucky shrugged and leaned against the window. "If...you know. If things were different, if there'd never been no war, if I were just a guy and you were just a dame, d'you think you coulda loved me like that?" he asked.

She took her eyes from the road to look at him. "Like a house burning down?" and he nodded. Natasha considered it for only a moment before turning back to the road and shaking her head. "No. Or, I don't know. I've never been 'just a dame,' before," she pointed out. "I was born, my parents handed me to Ivan before they were crushed in a firebombing, and from that moment onward I was a trainee killer. There's never been anything else. _I've_ never been anything else."

"Okay, but look at it hypothetically-"

"I can't," she ground out. "It's different for you, you were normal once. I never had what you had, no childhood, no friends or family, just the next mission."

Bucky took a deep, frustrated breath. "Okay, let's look at it this way, then. On your next mission, this is your cover: Your name is Natasha Romanoff. The year is 1928. Your parents moved to America to escape the war a few weeks before you were born. Your father opened an auto shop that became an empire by the time you were seven. You take ballet classes and get straight A's and all the boys love you, but your father's fiercely protective of his little princess, because guess what? You have your _mother's_ last name, not your father's. Now skip ahead to '45. You're seventeen years old and the war's just ended. Your parents are heading a charity dance for wounded veterans. I lost an arm in battle, but I've got a pretty good handle on it, and you and I meet on the dance floor. We talk all night. Think you could love me then?" he asked.

" _Natasha_ might."

"But you _are_ Natasha."

"No I'm _not_ , James!" She slammed down the breaks and pulled onto the shoulder of the road; a pickup truck blared its horn as it passed. "I am not that girl. I never was that girl, and I never will be that girl. Just because her name is Natasha too doesn't mean that I can relate to her."

Before Bucky could open his mouth to argue, the tension between them was broken by a soft mewling sound from the back seat. Natasha and Bucky looked back and let out matching shouts of alarm, instantly grappling with their seat belts to free themselves.

"You didn't check that there was a _baby_ in the back seat before giving the all-clear?!"

"There weren't any parents around, how was I supposed to know?!"

" _You first-class imbecile!_ " Natasha screamed with red spots blooming high on her cheeks. "Do you realize what this means? The police could be on us any second! Get out of the car, out!"

Bucky was already climbing out, looking harried and concerned as he glanced at the dozing baby in the back seat. "What do we do about the kid? We can't just leave the little guy," he worried.

As if on cue, faint strains of sirens arose in the distance. Natasha shut her door, locked the car, and left the keys out of immediate eyesight but still visible enough to be found. With a glare at Bucky she ran into the thin woods for their meager cover. He was on her heels in seconds. She continued to curse at him under her breath even as they ran. There was a lot of ground to cover if they didn't want to get caught. They found a stream to go alongside until the road was out of sight, then shifted themselves back on the right track again.

"Great," she grumbled, "just great. Now it'll take all night to get there, and I can't even guarantee my contact is still alive. This could all be a massive waste of time for all I know."

"Then why are we going?"

She turned and shoved him into an ankle-deep puddle. "Because if anyone is going to know where the Red Room would resettle, it's him! And we need to know from where the Red Room is operating to find them, don't we?" she asked as though talking to a Kindergartener.

Rubbing a splatter of mud from his eye, Bucky scowled. "Fine! Forgive me, Princess! Lead on!" he snarled at her.

They walked in silence for another hour before vertigo set in and Natasha had to stop, hatefully slumping against the side of the road. Bucky kept watch for the police from a few steps a way, arms crossed, posture tight, silently venting his frustration instead of confronting her. Natasha watched the sun glint off of his mechanical arm and remembered Natalia's love for him. She had loved his viciousness, his quick temper, his efficiency and strength and love for a country to which they no longer belonged.

"I barely even know who I am _now_ , James," she said. "Only in the past six months have I been free of the Russian super serum, free of everything that made me who I was for sixty years. How can you expect me to know something as big as loving anyone but the man I love, when loving him is all I know for certain?"

He didn't reply. Only stared down the road as their tangled past came rushing up to meet them.

* * *

 

* * *

The contact's house was only recently vacated. Still warm, dinner on the table, light on over the stove. Natasha sifted through the damp ashes in the grate while Bucky looked through the writing desk. "Everything's gone," he reported. "Not even the little snowflakes from tearing pages out of spiral notebooks."

"It's all in here," confirmed Natasha, pulling free a few intact scraps of paper from the ashes. "Blueprints. Notes. I can't read half of it, but it's his handwriting."

"No paint. No warning."

She nodded, straightening and looking around. "They didn't know we were coming. Clint was all the warning I was meant to have, but they must be planning something." The papers were dropped unceremoniously back into the grate, useless, and wrapped a wool blanket from the bed around her shoulders. "Might as well rest until I think of what to do next. It could take a wh-"

"Whoa, hey, what was that?!" yelped Bucky as he scrabbled at the collar of his suit. "Something just electrocuted me!"

There was an audible crackle, a pop, and then Steve's voice was coming small and tinny from Bucky's suit. "Winter Soldier, this is Captain America, do you copy? Repeat, Captain America for Winter Soldier, copy."

Bucky met her eyes. "What should I tell him?" he asked.

Thinking fast, Natasha sank onto the bed. "Pretend you're far enough away that I can't hear you talking. I'll catch you in a few seconds," she told him, and waited.

"Captain?" Bucky whispered into the comm without looking away from her. "How did you do that?"

"You're going to be alright, soldier. Do you know your current location? Can you slip away?"

She stood and noiselessly padded over. "No," replied Bucky with a hint of a smirk. "I'm just a few feet away from her, I don't know how she hasn't-"

And she took the comm.

They silently agreed to wait in the cabin for Tony to bring their supplies. Natasha stretched back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to quiet the sudden frenzy in her mind as her stomach churned. She had taken pills that, had she not ironically vomited them up an hour later, could have disfigured or killed her baby. Her fetus. Embryo, whatever. Her head started to hurt and she dozed off.

There was another crackle as her own communicator popped to life and she jumped upright. «Natalia,» a hauntingly familiar voice said. She and Bucky exchanged a shocked look, but she turned on the communicator in shaking hands.

«Ivan?» she asked, but the question was pointless. They both knew it was him, there was no doubt in their minds, it was only a matter of _how_.

«How you've grown, my darling Natalia.»

Curling around herself on the bed, Natasha closed her eyes and prayed for the ability to keep this façade together. «Ivan, Ivan, I let them change me,» she ranted with a sob in her voice. «I'm sorry, Papa, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to! I was weak and now I want to be strong again! Please!» She continued to gasp and wail until Bucky looked uncertain if she was faking it anymore.

Then Ivan's voice interrupted her, hard and dark, and she dropped the act. «I understand, Natalia. Their methods are unlike ours and difficult to resist,» he assured her. «I'm sure you fought bravely.»

«I fought them so hard. The Winter Soldier is with me, but they got him too. He isn't the same. I've been trying to bring him back, but nothing is working. How did you find us, Ivan? Can you save us?»

Ivan's rich heavy laugh made the communicator crackle again. «Are you so sure you want me to save you? Are you so sure you've deserved it?» he asked. «Do you remember when you were a child, and I would come into your room and touch the heat between your legs? Do you remember what I told you?»

Dropping her gaze to the floor, Natasha felt Bucky stiffen beside her and shook her head for silence. «You...told me that it meant you loved me, and it would make me stronger,» she slowly said. Bucky shifted but she didn't look at him.

«Do you want me to love you again?»

«So much, Papa. I want to be strong again.»

Her shoulders started to shake. There was a smile curdling Ivan's voice when he next spoke. «Come outside, my love. I'm waiting.»

The communicators' connection cut out and left them in silence. Natasha met Bucky's eye. "You said you remember waking up in cryo, the base destroyed...Ivan's body..." she trailed off.

Bucky nodded. "And you saw it too."

She swallowed past the bile in her throat. "De-decapitated?" she asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I thought so."

There was nothing to be done. Ivan was waiting for them outside, somehow miraculously alive even though they'd both recognized his body in the rubble. And he was outside. And Natasha was going to have to face the man who raised her as if everything was fine, as if she wanted him to sneak into her bedroom again in the dead of night and touch her because it meant he loved her and because it would make her stronger. And he was outside.

A mechanical whirring, clanging and crashing through the underbrush, came nearer to the cabin. Natasha's heart leaped into her throat. For a moment she thought it was Iron Man come early, but no, it was too heavy for the suit, it was something else, something wrong.

She stepped out of the cabin door and sank to her knees at what she saw.

 

* * *

Tony, Bruce, and Pepper sequestered themselves in Maria's nursery when she went down for the night, relishing the quiet calm before the storm. Bruce was on the floor at Pepper's feet. His hand was reaching between the bars of Maria's crib and brushing back her dark curls. "I love when it's quiet like this," Bruce whispered. "No fussing, no tantrums, just the four of us together."

With a smile bright enough to make sunflowers bow her way, Pepper reached her hand down to brush back Bruce's curls. "I know. It's nice to see you two so relaxed, too, you know," she said pointedly. "The next few days are going to be rough, and I want you two to remember that just because you're super heroes, it doesn't mean you don't need to stop and rest once in a while, just like normal people." She leaned her head down against Bruce's and kissed his temple.

"I like the chaos," Tony spoke up, fiddling with his watch/communicator/whatever else it did at this point. "It gives me purpose. It's why I like having the munchkin in the workshop with me. She starts up and suddenly there are a million things to do, and they all have an order, a purpose, a priority. Maria's first, of course, unless there's something about to explode. I like the chaos." His expression grew wistful and he leaned against the foot of Maria's crib.

Bruce met his eye. "You need to be careful with how you approach the meeting tonight," he sternly said. "We still don't know if Natasha's faking it, and she could be hostile. Keep your faceplate down no matter what happens. Even if she seems like herself. She's Natasha; she was raised to be a natural at this sort of thing."

"I _know_ , Bruce," Tony said with a roll of his eyes. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a _total_ idiot."

"Yes, I know dear, but it's my job to nag you."

"Um, I thought that was Pepper's job."

Pepper smiled and scrubbed her fingers through Bruce's hair. "We decided early on it would probably take two of us to actually get you to listen," she pleasantly said, laughing when Tony's face fell.

"You treat me like a child. Both of you. It's insulting."

They just kept grinning until Bruce crawled across the distance between them to kiss him. "We nag because we care, Tony," he reminded him.

There was a punctuated knock on the door and Sharon Carter peeked inside. "Hi guys, I'm sorry but Steve says something about picking up a foreign signal from the communicators? I don't really know, he just said to come and get you," she said, biting fretfully at her lower lip. Her expression brightened. "Hi Pepper, hi Bruce! Oh, Maria looks so sweet all snug in her cot! I remember when Jamie was so bitty like that, gosh, the time just flies, doesn't it? She was just a newborn yesterday, wasn't she?" Tony shouldered past and left Bruce and Pepper to her chatting that could go on for decades uninterrupted.

Steve was waiting with Jamie on his knee, but voices were coming from the speakers in the ceiling, clearly speaking another language. "JARVIS is working on translating," he said as Tony sat down.

There was a click and a whirr, and then digitized English voices came instead of the true ones.

"I understand, Natalia," a man's voice said. "Their methods are different and difficult to resist. I'm sure you fought bravely."

"I fought them!" replied the woman's voice that must have been Natasha's. "The Winter Soldier is with me, but they had him too. He isn't the same. I've been trying to bring him back, but nothing is working. How did you find us, Ivan? Can you save us?"

There was a heavy, dark laugh that made the communicator crackle. "Are you so sure you want me to save you? Are you so sure you've deserved it?" he asked. "Do you remember when you were a child, and I would come into your room and touch you hot between your legs? Do you remember what I said?"

There was a long silence. "You...told me that you loved me, and it made me stronger," Natasha slowly said.

"Do you want me to love you again?"

"So much, Papa. I want to be strong again."

"Come outside, my love. I'm waiting."

The foreign signal popped but Natasha and Bucky's voices still came over. Natasha's every breath was shaking. "You said you remember waking up in cryo, the base destroyed...Ivan's body..." Natasha trailed off.

"And you saw it too," Bucky said.

"De-decapitated?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I thought so."

Tony met Steve's eyes - who was covering Jamie's ears in case of more troublesome sounds - as the communicator's signal cut out and in again. Two pairs of footsteps faded from earshot. There was a far-off muffled curse, a mechanical crash, then silence. Steve looked at Tony. "You need to go, _now_ ," he said, and Tony nodded before hurrying back to the nursery.

"There's an emergency, I have to go now," he told Bruce and Pepper, and all the playfulness drained from their expressions. He leaned down to kiss Maria's forehead and stroke her cheek. "I'll be back soon."

"Be careful," Pepper said, her eyes pleading.

Bruce looked up from where he was still sat between her knees. "Call if you need the big guy." It was a testament to his character that he even offered.

Stepping out onto the deck, Tony walked through the suit building itself around him and took off toward the north.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry I forgot to update yesterday! It's been a busy few days.

Everything was white noise. The world pressed in on her from all sides, sound and sight and sensation all melding together into one sickle-shaped aura shining in her left eye. Her stomach contracted and she thought she might throw up despite only minutes ago she felt so hungry it was like her stomach was trying to eat itself. Natasha was hauled to her feet by Bucky’s hands, the mechanical pinch painfully soothing on her left side as it jerked her back to alertness.  
  
Standing mere meters away down the path was a face and body unmistakably belonging to Ivan Petrovitch, and yet he was different. He gleamed. His joints hissed, arms and legs pumped like pistons, and yet it was Ivan, the man pulled her from a burning building before it collapsed on her parents, the man who raised her, the man who crept into her bedroom late at night and touched her with his love and made her strong. Because it was true. It did make her strong. It made her strong enough to kill the head of the Red Room after he made her sleep with him. It made her strong enough to get away from them.  
  
It was easy to mask the tears of hateful disgust in her eyes with joy. She’d been doing it all her life. Ivan had taught her and yet he still fell for it, she could see it in his eyes.  
  
«Father,» she gasped, falling to her feet like a marionette on uneven strings. «Papa!»  
  
She ran - staggered - to Ivan’s side and embraced him. The line of his body was hard and unyielding against hers, like iron, but he wrapped his mechanical arms around her.  
  
«Oh, Father, what have you done?» she asked with a hand splayed flat against his chest.  
  
The arms around her were too tight. It hurt and her hair caught in its joints. She was trembling; could he feel it?  
  
A hand tangled in her hair and pulled until she looked into Ivan’s camera lens eyes. «I’ve progressed, Natalia,» he smirked. Or rather, his voice smirked. His face couldn’t move, because it was made of metal. Natasha thought she might throw up again. «The brain stem of an extraordinary man in an even more extraordinary body. Stronger, faster, eternally young, superior to any man in every way. You should be proud.»  
  
She nodded. «I am, father. I am proud.»  
  
Ivan took them away through the underbrush. It snapped and broke beneath their feet. «And you, Winter Soldier--»  
  
“That is not my name!” Bucky snarled, the perfect image of a defiant hostage. “I was finished with this, I was finished with all of this and now you’ve dragged me back in!”  
  
Stopping, turning, grasping Bucky’s shoulders like an uncle or a doting father, Ivan held him tight. The metal sparked and yelped when Ivan’s fingers and Bucky’s mechanical shoulder rubbed together. “It is alright, my son, if you prefer this language, then we will speak in it together. Just like old times. Now, tell me. What was the trigger phrase that brought back our dear Natalia?” he asked, a hand falsely comforting on the side of his head.  
  
Bucky squirmed and struggled to break out of the titanium grip. “I’ll never tell you! It wasn’t even intentional, I had no idea I was saying it!” he growled. “I was trying to reassure her and it just came naturally; I don’t even think I could remember if I tried.” He swore under his breath as he was pushed away. A cut oozed under his eye from a loose branch catching him.  
  
The communicator crackled with static against the soft skin in the crook of her neck, but she clamped a hand over it before Tony’s voice came through.  
  
«It’s alright, Natalia, answer it,» said Ivan, gesturing to one of his ears with the smirk back in his voice. «He only wants you to report back. I can hear him loud and clear.»  
  
After a moment of hesitation she smiled at Ivan, then removed her hand from the comm. “-- _epeat, Black Widow, fucking report back or I’m calling SHIELD to pick up your ass right now!_ ” Tony was howling like a hurricane into the comm. Natasha flinched back from it before holding down the button to reply.  
  
“Quiet down, Stark, I’m right here,” she scowled into the mouthpiece. “What do you want?”  
  
“ _What the hell is going on, Widow? Who was that we picked up on your comm?_ ”  
  
She looked to Ivan, heart racing.  
  
“Keep him talking,” he said, and she nodded, kept walking.  
  
Swallowing, throat thick with unbridled anxiety, Natasha turned her head and pressed on the call button. “What you heard over the signal, Stark, was progress,” she said proudly, meeting Ivan’s eye with a smile. “Progress of which you could never have possibly dreamed. You think putting your soft, vulnerable body in a metal suit makes you a hero? A pioneer?”  
  
" _Natasha, what_ \--?"  
  
"If you were in an explosion, your body would turn to jelly even if the suit remained intact," she gloated. "You build a talking computer program and call it the crown jewel of Artificial Intelligence, but you're wrong."  
  
For a moment she could hear Tony muttering to himself, probably cursing, trying to figure out what she was telling him. " _So, what, you think you've found something better than JARVIS and the suit?_ " He asked. There was a smirk in his voice like Ivan's and it made Natasha's skin crawl.  
  
To cover for it, she meanly laughed. Her legs felt like they were made of water. "You don't even need JARVIS, not when you have a perfectly working brain stem. You don't understand, Stark. You are a child at play. I find the company of adults much more--"  
  
" _Tony!_ " yelled Bucky between her and Ivan. "Tony, it's a brain stem in a mechanical body! You can't fight solid metal! I'm sorry, tell Steve I'm sorry, I didn't want this to happen, I don't want to go back!"  
  
Ivan grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and violently shook him into dazed silence. It was, of course, no effort for him. There was no advantage. He had a thick strip of armor over his vulnerable brain stem, he had technologically advanced hearing and sight, his body would yield to nothing. He was right; he was superior, and Natasha couldn't handle this alone.  
  
"You and the team may as well _give up_ ," she said, her voice heavy with meaning over the phrase they had all memorized for situations like this. Avengers never gave up. Even when their own teammate told them to do so, they took it was a sign to charge in. Because it was their sign.  
  
Tony took so long to reply that worry started burning in her gut. What if he didn't think she meant it as the code? Then he cleared his throat and said, "Understood," before crackling out.  
  
She kept the link open from her end, but told Ivan it was turned off. The button was jammed down so Tony and probably the tower could hear everything but she could hear nothing. No more reassurances from her team's voices; all she had was her would-be ex husband and the promise that Clint was nearer with every step.  
  
There was a nondescript SUV waiting as twilight fell over them like a blanket. Natasha pushed Bucky into the passenger seat so he "couldn't get away" before Ivan gestured her into the driver's seat.  
  
"I prefer to walk," Ivan's voice smirked. "There is a map under the floor mat. Burn it and destroy the communicator before you go. I'll be waiting, my children."  
  
They chorused, "Yes, Father," and he left, walking in leaping bounds nearly fit to match the Hulk. Bucky opened his mouth to say something but Natasha stopped him with a hand on his chest. Not until Ivan was out of sight. They didn't know just how good his hearing was. While she waited Natasha dug out the map, studied it, muttered the coordinates aloud, then set it aflame with the cigarette lighter.  
  
"You have some sort of plan?" Bucky asked once Ivan's gleaming body vanished from sight.  
  
Natasha slumped over with her forehead on the steering wheel, breathing slowly as a thousand thoughts and possible scenarios flashed through her mind. Finally she sat up. "Stay alive," she decided, and shifted into gear.  
  
"Sounds promising."  
  
"Shut up. I'm still mad at you about the baby in the car."  
  
A beat passed and they started laughing, breathless with underlying terror. This wasn't something Natasha did, she never went into missions without a plan of attack and an escape route. It took weeks of preparation before she allowed herself to even consider a mission for Clint and Torres. Now she was flying blind, dancing directly into the hands of those who would kill her the instant they knew she wasn't loyal to them anymore, no plan, no escape route, just her Widow Bites and Bucky's arm, which would likely be taken from him and dismantled as soon as they stepped in.  
  
The landscape rolled by and Natasha  whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and again. Not just to Bucky for dragging him into this.  To Clint, for not being there to watch his back. The team, for betraying them, even falsely. Sharon, for shooting at her. Drakhov's daughter. The children in the hospital she burned down in 1997. Even Ivan, whom she felt she could have saved from this fate. He had been a good man, aside from what he did to her in the dark of night when she was a little girl. When she grew up too much to interest him he taught her everything she knew, even the human things buried deep and undiscovered until recently. He was a good man when it was important.  
  
A hand covered hers on the wheel, large and hard and gleaming like a blade, and she unclenched her white fingers. "You don't have to apologize, Natasha. We know," he grimly said. In some way or another he seemed to understand. He had enough red in his own ledger.  
  
“What’s he gonna do to you if he finds out about the baby?” he asked after a while.  
  
She bit her lip with a headshake. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Probably, it’ll be cut out of me. Or my brain stem, to be put in one of those robot bodies.”  
  
Bucky shuddered wordlessly. Ivan’s fate was one that clearly awaited them if they didn’t escape. It was even possible that Clint had already succumbed, but Natasha didn’t let herself think of that. Only when she had a body to bury would she allow herself to grieve. There hadn’t been a funeral for Coulson and she still expected to see him when she glanced over her shoulder, sometimes.  
  
They arrived at an old logging mill and Natasha stopped the car. She pulled the communicator free of her suit and Bucky crushed it in his mechanical hand. They were really on their own, now. Here was hoping that Tony had actually paid attention when she said the coordinates.  


* * *

  
  
" _Mayday, mayday, mayday, we need all hands on deck! Avengers, assemble! Natasha is definitely faking it, she just gave the signal, I need anyone and everyone at the coordinates JARVIS is sending you. Now! This is not a drill! I'm flying ahead but I need you guys in a Quinjet yesterday!_ "  
  
Steve grappled for the comm link. "No, Tony! Hang back and watch the facility until we arrive; we can't let them know we're coming or they'll shut it all down!" he ordered. His voice was hushed because Sharon and Jamie were curled asleep in the armchair with him; when he sat up they adjusted so they were curved around his back. He was warm and tired, but alert.  
  
Scoffing into the link, Tony replied, “ _Only if you can promise the team will get there when I do._ ”  
  
“Tony, we’re hours away--”  
  
“ _Then I’m going in! I’m not going to let them kill or-or maim our teammates just because American Booty wants to take his sweet time getting here!_ ”  
  
“I will get the team together as fast as I can, I just don’t know if the Quinjet is fast enough to meet you!” argued Steve, his whispering voice turning more into a stage whisper by the moment.  
  
Tony scoffed again. “ _Come on, Steve, who built the damn thing? Uh, yeah, I did. It’s fast enough! Bring Parker, too, bring anyone who could be useful, even Bruce. I know he doesn’t like letting the big guy out for facility infiltration, but we might be dealing with an indestructible enemy here, so we need the Hulk to blow that theory out of the water. Now!_ ” and he cut off the link.  
  
Sighing, Steve reached his hand back and brushed it through Sharon’s hair. It was thick and coarsely waved, because when she started out at SHIELD she did her best to look nice every day for work and she fried it all up on accident. Now she just didn’t care anymore, clipped it back and let it slip out as long as it didn’t fall in her eyes. When they started seeing each other the effort had come back - mostly because all of their dates tended to be dinner at her house so she didn’t have to worry about being late - but it had been over a year since then. She and Jamie were comfortable with him, and he was happy with them.  
  
“Sharon,” he murmured until she stirred, trying not to wake Jamie. “Sharon, wake up, sweetheart.”  
  
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What happened? Did something happen to Natasha, is everything okay?” she mumbled, barely coherent.  
  
Leaning in to kiss her forehead, Steve hummed, “Nothing specific, but Tony’s called the team in. It’s time for me to go.” Sharon’s hands closed tight over his shoulders, eyes wide with worry. Steve kissed her again, this time pressing in the tip of her nose. “Now is not the time to be afraid, Shar, but I have to get the team together. Or what’s left of it. Okay? Go to sleep, get the kiddo to bed, and hopefully everything’ll be ship-shape when you wake up.” He smiled reassuringly and touched her lower lip with his thumb.  
  
“Okay,” nodded Sharon, blinking fast. “Stay safe or I’ll kick your butt from here to Kingdom Come, you got it?”  
  
“Understood, ma’am.”  
  
They shared another anxious smile before Sharon laboriously raised Jamie into her arms - he was still small enough to be carried, but Sharon was tiny, she was only 5’2” when she wore her thicker-soled shoes - and took him with her to the guest apartment. Yes, Sharon had slept - in all senses of the word; he was from the 40s, not a nun - in his apartment before. A few times, actually. But when Jamie was with her they slept separately to spare him. And to spare themselves the awkwardness of explaining it to him.  
  
Peter and Thor were together in the gym; the god was chasing the young man around, getting much-needed practice because Peter was so much smaller and faster than him. They both paused when Steve stepped in the door. “All hands on deck in the Quinjet ASAP. That means you too, Peter,” he instructed.  
  
“What, _really?_ ” asked Peter, voice cracking.  
  
Steve was already out the door.  
  
He found Bruce dozing over the map projections in his lab. Both Natasha and Bucky’s signals were out now, and Steve had to swallow back a wave of anxiety. He put himself back into wartime, put himself in charge of these people he loved so much, and felt himself calm down again. The Commandos had been his family, and when he felt afraid of the battles to come he reminded himself that there was no room for fear. There were people he had to look out for, to get home to their mothers and siblings and wives, and it made him calm.  
  
“Bruce.”  
  
Jumping awake, nudging aside the new glasses Pepper got him to rub his eyes, Bruce looked up. “Yeah? Everything okay?” he asked.  
  
Steve nodded. “So far, but Tony wants all hands on deck in case something comes up. We’re probably going to need the Hulk. Quinjet ASAP, okay?” he asked, and left to suit up without waiting for an answer.  


* * *

  
  
Their tour of the abandoned mill was brief. The building was small but crowded with weapons and equipment. Natasha had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from asking about Clint. _Be patient, slow down, take your time, know when to strike_ , she recited to herself, Ivan’s words to her when he taught her how to hunt in the forest behind their cabin. That was before the Red Room, before Rose, before everything. She killed a stag on her first try and he put blood on her cheeks, and that was the first night he came to touch her.  
  
Her stomach squirmed as she looked over the machinery, the mechanical bodies, and tried to match them to people she once knew. One of them looked like her, and she had to look at it like she was interested. Like there wasn’t a baby in her stomach that needed to live. She needed her baby to live, and for her baby to live, she needed Clint. She _needed_ Clint. There was no argument. No matter what the team said, no matter how much they insisted they would take care of her and the baby if Clint came home in a box, Natasha wouldn’t be able to do it. They could have the baby, they could keep it, but she couldn’t do it on her own.  
  
“Is that another cryo chamber?” she asked, craning her neck to get a better look.  
  
Ivan’s neck whirred as he nodded. “Only one is in use right now. Come and look, Natalia, you’ll be pleased,” he told her, arm outstretched in a welcoming gesture.  
  
Everything in Natasha told her to turn around and run, get away from those chambers as fast as she could before she was locked in one for another six years. Still, she had to follow him and pretend she was interested, keep up the façade, so that was what she did. And inside the only occupied cryogenic chamber, there was a man of around her age. A man she once knew better than the back of her own hand, loved more dearly than she could ever have loved at that age, the man she would have given up everything for, tried to give up everything for.  
  
“Alexei?” she breathed, touching the chamber window with two fingers. “Alexei Shoskatov.”  
  
Her husband. The boy she fell in love with when she was only fifteen years old, the handsome young pilot who had died when she was pregnant with their daughter, now a man, handsome and lean with stubble on his chin. He hadn’t been able to grow facial hair when they met, it came in patches and she would laugh at him. The reason she ran from the Red Room was now in their clutches.  
  
“We call him the Red Guardian, and someday he will be great,” said Ivan proudly, as though he were looking in on his own son. “He is our new answer to your Captain America, seeing as the Winter Soldier was taken from us.” The lenses in his eyes glinted ominously as he looked back at Bucky. He was doing a very good job of looking like a caged animal. Then again, he was one. They both were, now.  
  
When it began to sink in that Ivan was waiting for an answer, Natasha internally shook her self. “He’s beautiful,” she said. “He’s magnificent, but...Father, I don’t understand. Who are we fighting? America and Russia are at peace.”  
  
“They won’t always be,” replied Ivan cryptically. “And when the time comes, the Red Room will be prepared.”  
  
Heavy hands settled on her shoulders and guided her away. Now was the right time, now was perfect, but her heart was beating so quickly she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get the words out without throwing up. She met Bucky’s eye behind Ivan’s back and begged him. _Do it for me, because in this moment I am weak_.  
  
In response, Bucky’s face hardened with falsified rage. “What did you do to Hawkeye? Where is he?” he loudly asked. When Ivan didn’t answer quickly enough he rammed his shoulder into a nearby trunk to send it toppling over. “ _Tell me!_ ”  
  
She shifted away from the trunk, arms crossing over her midsection, then caught herself and instead turned to make it look like she was trying to protect Ivan. The perfect obedient daughter that he ripped away from her mother’s arms. “That’s none of your business!” she spat back at Bucky, suddenly inspired. “He deserves to pay for what he did to me!”  
  
The weight was back around her shoulders. “And he shall, my dove. But first, we must deal with this irritation. Put him in a cryogenic chamber, then come and find me,” he demanded and turned away. Did he really trust her so easily? Getting Clint back would be easier than she thought if Ivan continued to be so gullible. And Clint was alive. She could save him.  
  
“Go meet Stark,” she told Bucky, opening the trunk he knocked over and pulling out a pistol. Her hands were shaking minutely. Seeing Alexei again had been a shock.  
  
The doors had been locked behind them when they entered and there was a key pad, no escape, Ivan would know if Natasha let him go. Of course he would. Even if he was gullible he was still a clever man, and he knew exactly what precautions to take against treachery. If anything, he was probably waiting to hear--  
  
 _He had heard her telling Bucky to meet Tony_.  
  
Panic threatened to overwhelm her but she refused to sink. Instead instinct took over. She shot Bucky in his mechanical arm and the force toppled him over. “Did you really think you could get away?” she asked, voice icy and cold as his namesake, kicking him over onto his back and meeting his eyes with hers wide in a silent plea for forgiveness.  
  
She helped him up, then put the gun to his back. They were too close to saving Clint for her to be easy on him now. “To the chamber,” she ordered, and Bucky didn’t move. Of course he didn’t. Cryosleep was awful. Disorienting, painful and frighteningly dark. Natasha knew that, but her mind was screaming at her to find Clint and bring him home, which meant she had to, for the time being, do exactly as Ivan wanted.  
  
“Go.”  
  
“N-no!” Bucky stammered, digging in his heels. “Natasha, _no_.” With the gun pressing harder he finally took a step. “No, Natasha, there’s gotta be another way than this! You aren’t really gonna shoot me--”  
  
With loathing for herself and the monster she had been built to be burning in her gut, Natasha took him by the scruff of his hair and yanked him backwards. “Do you really want to try me and find out?” she whispered in his ear, and slowly, so slowly, he shook his head. She released him and they walked the rest of the way in silence.  
  
Tears burned her eyes as she locked him in and turned on the mechanism to freeze the chamber, and she had to turn and gag. Steve’s best friend. Her ex-husband. Her teammate, in some sense of the word. She had just betrayed him in the most intimate way she knew, and yet the tears in her eyes were not those of remorse. There would be time for that later.  
  
Without pausing to make sure the chamber door was fully locked into place, Natasha followed the sound of Ivan’s body moving in the mill and found a staircase to the cellar.  
  
«Come, Natalia,» Ivan called up from the darkness. «He will be my homecoming gift to you.»  
  
Clutching the pistol tight, she followed Ivan’s voice and the promise of seeing her husband again into the shadows.


	7. Chapter 7

Natasha had to stop halfway down the cellar stairs, to lean against the wall with a hand pressed to her rolling stomach. This wasn’t nerves; she had saved Clint from certain death before, and she had been in much more dangerous situations than this. Closing her eyes, she silently begged, _Not now, baby. Please, just a little bit longer and you can make me as sick as you like_. She took a deep breath, reinforced her grip on the gun - even though it would be wholly ineffectual on Ivan, it was comforting - and pushed through the fog. Focus on the big picture, on the prize, not the pain, not the race, concentrate on getting down those last ten steps to Clint. With enough concentration she made it, her steps sure, her breathing steady, her mind in chaos.  
  
Bright fluorescent lights lined the cellar walls. Beneath them were cabinets full of tools and more weapons, Ivan stood against the opposite wall, and in the center of the room was a sight that should have made her happy.  
  
Clint, tied to a chair and slumped over, bloody burnt flesh around his ears and a string of saliva trailing from his gaping mouth. When Natasha stepped closer he twitched and looked up, eyes widening, a hopeful smile daring to curl his lips at the sight of her. He was dazed, in pain and possibly drugged; the chances were he wouldn’t even remember this later. That was good.  
  
With Ivan’s eyes on her, she lashed out and slapped him. Clint’s low moan of pain wrenched her gut, but she kept her expression steely and hit him again. He couldn’t even cry out he was so weak. Starved for almost two days, injured, bound, and now beaten by his alleged savior.  
  
«Let me be alone with him,» she told Ivan.  
  
He stood up straight from the wall to stare her down. «Are you sure that’s wise? He may try to lure you away again,» he warned.  
  
Before Natasha could answer, there was a hair-raising crash upstairs that made the foundations shake.  
  
If he could have, Ivan would have nervously swallowed. «Wait here,» he instructed, and went back up the stairs.  
  
The moment his shining feet vanished Natasha was on the move, finding something to cut the thick cording around Clint’s wrists and ankles. He doubled over and fell in deadweight out of the chair. Natasha scrambled to catch him but he had already hit the floor with another low moan. “Clint. Clint, get up, we have to go, you big baby, come on, time to get up,” she rambled while pulling on him.  
  
They had done this before. Practiced it, even, carrying one another in emergencies, slinging each other over their shoulders and running for safety. But Natasha’s body was betraying her more with every passing moment, and no matter how badly she wanted to do it she didn’t know if she could. Instead, for the time being, she rolled Clint onto his side so he could breathe, “Okay, okay, just-just wait here, I’ll be back,” she promised, and ran to the stairs.  
  
Black spots erupted in her eyes when Ivan’s arm crashed across the back of her head. «You idiot girl, you let him escape!» he snarled as she fell to her knees. «The door wasn’t sealed! How man times did I tell you as a girl to make sure the door is sealed?!»  
  
«I’m sorry,» she gasped, nausea rolling over her.  
  
«Not sorry enough! Help me find him before he-!»  
  
A bullet bounced off Ivan’s neck and buried itself in the wall. He spun round and shot the place where the bullet came from, using a gun built directly into his arm. It took everything Natasha had in her not to cover her mouth. She picked herself up from the floor, leaning on the wall where Bucky’s shot landed because her head was throbbing.  
  
Ivan seized her by the back of her neck and shoved her toward the ladder leading to the loft. «Get him down from there! It isn’t secure enough for me to go.»  
  
Internally cursing, Natasha hurried the rest of the way up the loft. She exchanged a furious look with Bucky before shooting carefully at his arm. A bullet whizzed past her ear so close the air burned. The breath froze in Natasha’s throat. He had shot at her! It wasn’t like she had a metal arm to protect herself with! She didn’t even have her regenerative healing anymore, she was just Natasha, soft and human and vulnerable, and pregnant.  
  
Suddenly all of Clint’s arguments for her to stay home made a lot more sense, and she had to fight not to knead the heel of her hand into her forehead. Bucky’s eyes were flashing at her from the darkness, filled with rage and something dangerously like the Winter Soldier. The tip of his nose was blackened with frostbite after his uneven exposure in the cryo chamber.  
  
“ _How could you do that to me?_ ” he howled, shooting again. Natasha slid into the shadows, changing her tactic at the last minute. “ _How could you put me in there, Natasha!? I’ll kill you! I don’t care if you’re pregnant, I don’t care about Clint, I’ll kill you before I let you put me back in there!_ ”  
  
Her instincts weren’t the only ones kicking back in after so many years free of the Room. Even though she was moving as soundlessly as possible Bucky was trained on her the entire time, not shooting, only waiting and watching for her to slow down so he could strike. His eyes and arm glinted like blades in the loft’s half-light, double-edged, sharp and dangerous with hatred, and Natasha knew she was skating on thin ice. She could die at his hand or she could give up, go back down the ladder to Ivan who had likely heard all of that, and let him kill her for treason. Her heart crawled up into her throat and started to bleed terror that slipped back down to her gut. Or maybe it was just nausea.  
  
Another gunshot only a foot from her head made her duck down behind a crate of explosives. Oh, good, explosives. Now it was a real mission. Adrenaline spiked and she was calm again.  
  
Shifting to face the other direction, taking a deep breath, Natasha soundlessly drifted like a ghost around the perimeter of the loft. It took a lot of pivoting to get around the stacks of boxes and trunks, but she’d been a dancer in another life; it came easily to her. Ballerinas had to be light on their feet and Natasha had been an excellent ballerina. The best, in fact. Her weight rolled from heel to toe without the slightest hesitation, and even the ancient floorboards didn’t creak under her.  
  
She rounded the corner, gun at the ready, only to find the place where she thought Bucky stood empty. The Winter Soldier’s instincts lingered in Bucky just as the Black Widow’s did in Natasha, and they had both trained up on their own since then as well. Despite being heavier he was just as light on his feet, or nearly. Natasha heard a creak eight feet to the right and pivoted to face it.  
  
Another bullet burned past; a few strands of her hair actually flew away. «Winter, stop shooting at me!» she shouted into the dark, unable to stop herself even though it gave her position away. She wasn’t Natasha anymore, not like this, not with bullets flying past her ears, not with the Winter Soldier’s arm glinting at her and Ivan watching with a disapproving eye. She was Natalia, fighting for her life from her own family.   
  
Just like old times.  
  


* * *

  
  
Despite all his trumpeting, Tony hung back when he made it to the mill. There were gunshots and shouts coming from the low building, but JARVIS was closely monitoring the situation and no one was dead or injured yet. “Cap, any news?” he asked over the comm.  
  
There was a brief crackle. “ _We’re close, Tony, very close, please be patient_ ,” begged Steve. “ _I’ve got Thor, Banner, and Spider-Man with me. We’re coming_.”  
  
Tony swallowed at another gunshot. “Hurry,” he ordered. Even as he said it, he heard the faint hum in the air as the Quinjet came in for a landing a safe distance away. Good. Good, okay, they could do this, they still had--  
  
“JARVIS, what was that? What was that screaming?” Tony asked, awareness focusing in on a particular shape of vowels.  
  
 _Playing back, sir,_ JARVIS replied, and moments later the digitally-translated words, “ _Winter, stop shooting at me!_ ” came back.  
  
Eyes widening, Tony cursed fluently and extensively. “They’re shooting at each other!” he shouted into the comm. “I don’t know what happened, but Natasha and Bucky are _shooting at each other!_ I need to go in, _now!_ ”  
  
“ _Tony--!_ ”  
  
Muting the comm, Tony launched off from his spot and took off for the mill. It only took a single blast to get the door down. Inside it was dark and crowded, and the mechanical man Bucky had been shrieking about was looking at him. A repulsor blast that should have took out a tank only made him stumble; it took three more to finally get him through the wall.  
  
From the loft above him Bucky dropped down, holding a pistol in each blackened, bloody hand. “She tried to lock me up, she was going to lock me up again!” he yelled, voice cracking with strain.  
  
Natasha practically threw herself down the ladder after him and dropped him with both legs around his neck. “Get him out of here!” she shouted, then ran for the opposite end of the mill. Before Tony could so much as lift a mechanical finger Ivan was busting back in; Natasha rolled to avoid his swinging arm and dove out of sight.  
  
“Guys, hurry up, everything’s going to Hell in a hand-basket really damn fast!” Tony warned the team, then shot Ivan through the wall again before picking Bucky up and giving him a shake. “Dude, stop shooting at your friends! Go get the others if you can’t keep your head on straight.” Then he dropped him, spitting mad, and nudged him toward the door.  
  
While the team were on their way Tony moved toward the end of the mill where Natasha vanished, keeping an eye out for her and repeatedly shooting Ivan back. After the third time or so he didn’t come back, and Tony allowed himself to believe that maybe he’d actually killed the bastard. Good riddance. “Natasha, what’re you doing over there?” he called after her. The equipment was stacked too close together for him to maneuver the suit through.  
  
He didn’t get an answer, only because at that moment the ceiling crashed in and two tons of metal fell on his head. Of course. Ivan, sitting on his chest, crushing his armor (and, oh god, his arc reactor), reared back a fist of solid steel, panels in his arm opened up for four different guns to emerge, but before he could shoot off Tony’s faceplate the heaven-sent Star Spangled Shield ( _Praise Jesus, the Lord is Mighty_ , Tony thought wryly) soared in and put a dent in Ivan’s aluminum hair mold.  
  
It was just enough of a distraction to roll and get the bastard off him. “Gang’s all here!” he happily cried at the approaching footsteps. “Someone find Romanov, hey? Where’s the big guy? Where’s my big, green, beautiful ball of rage?”  
  
Hulk jumped in through the hole Ivan made, landing in front of Tony with enough force to rattle the foundations and a feral grin. While the old metal bastard struggled to get up Peter swung around him from the rafters, trying and failing to web him in place. “Ah, _sick!_ ” the younger man groaned when fire shot from Ivan’s shoulders and he had to scramble away for cover. The ancient rafters caught on fire.  
  
“Perfect,” Steve cursed at Tony’s side. Shouldering his shield, he rushed Ivan next and beat him a few steps back while Tony shot repulsors at him between blows. It helped, and within moments Ivan fell out of sight down the cellar stairs. Breathing hard, Steve turned to Tony. “Where’s Natasha?”  
  
Shrugging in a hell-if-I-know fashion, Tony started toward the stairs to see what could be picked up of Ivan’s body. Maybe he could use parts for the Mark IX.  
  
“Whoa, dude in a freezer over here!” yelled Peter. “Anyone know how to open this thing?”  
  
“Spidey, get out of there! This place is going up like a candlestick!”  
  
Thor, who was keeping overhead surveillance, suddenly came down through the improvised skylight. “My friends, there is smoke coming from this building!” he boomed. “Why have you not evacuated?” He reared his hammer back when there was an enormous creak and the fire shimmered off of something at the top of the stairs. When the god didn’t throw his weapon, however, they turned to see why.  
  
Snarling and struggling against the hand enclosing both her wrists, Natasha squirmed like a trapped animal to free herself of Ivan’s massive metal grip. From Ivan’s other hand dangled Clint as limp as a rag doll with blood clotting around his ears. He was awake but wholly unaware of what was happening, which was probably awesome for their team, really. No need for Hawkeye to see the clusterfuck they were making of this rescue.  
  
“Someone break his fucking brain stem!” Tony screamed at them. No one dared shoot; it wouldn’t kill Ivan and he would bash their teammates’ heads in. It would only take a second but they would feel it for the rest of their lives.  
  
The moment seemed to drag on forever as Ivan turned his head to look at each of them. Then a stream of web shot from the loft and attached itself to the thumb of the hand holding Natasha. Peter pulled and, when the web came close to breaking, shot another in the same spot to pull anew. Ivan’s grip finally weakened enough that Natasha could wrench free, hitting the ground and rolling out of reach.   
  
While Peter continued to occupy his right arm Hulk dove in to save Cupid, wrenching the left arm completely off the metal body and offering it to Natasha as casually as a handkerchief. The fingers loosened around Clint and she ducked to catch him, hauling him over her shoulders into a fireman’s carry in the way they’d practiced a million times. Adrenaline was good, adrenaline made her invincible.  
  
“Thor, help the Hulk _if he will let you_ ,” Steve instructed over the roar of the spreading fire. “Make sure the brain stem is destroyed. Obliterated. Peter, get down from there, it could be-!”  
  
 _BOOM!_  
  
“Shit! Shit, shit, goddamn fucking _shit, everybody get out now!_ ” screamed Steve as the ceiling rained in on them. Peter was thrown from the loft and Thor effortlessly caught him. His suit was singed and smoking but he seemed otherwise alright.  
  
Natasha had been shoved to the ground by the concussive force and Clint’s deadweight, sprawled on her front and groaning but determined to get up again as soon as possible. There was a deadly purposeful gleam in her eyes, one that they’d only ever seen before in the thick of battle: she was going to get her husband out of that building or die trying.   
  
Before she could act on the latter Steve hurried forward and picked Clint up himself. “Come on, we need to get out of here before it all falls in,” he shouted over the chaos. One last glance behind him showed the Hulk turning Ivan into a Slinky. There was something pink and disgusting smeared over his fists. Perfect. “Avengers! Out!”  
  
Thor, Peter’s arm slung over his shoulders, pulled Natasha to her feet by the hand. Tony followed them once he was sure Ivan was finished and the fire contained.  
  


* * *

  
  
The air inside the Quinjet felt so cold compared to the heat of the fire.  
  
Natasha started to shake. She could feel secondhand terror bleeding her from the inside out.  
  
A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She slumped over beneath it, watching Bruce change back and hurry to look at Clint despite how woozy running made him after a change. Peter pulled off his mask and stared at it for a long time before shooting her a tremulous smile. Beside him, Thor cradled Mjölnir between his knees and watched the fire out the window. Steve helped Tony strip off his armor, then stowed his shield beneath Bucky’s seat.  
  
Something jumped into Natasha’s throat. “Alexei,” she choked. “ _We left Alexei_.”  
  
“Who?” Tony asked.  
  
“The guy in the freezer?” added Peter.  
  
Both hands shot up to cover her mouth. She felt so sick. “We have to go back for him. _We can’t just leave him, I need to go back!_ ” she shouted, jumping from her seat as though she would parachute right out the escape door.  
  
One warm hand and one mechanical closed over her shoulders, wrenching her away, sprawling her out on the floor. She barely felt the impact even after her vision went fuzzy around the edges. There was an uproar of yelling to _not throw the pregnant woman_ , but all she saw was the Winter Soldier, standing over her with the tips of his nose and fingers blackened by her hand.  
  
“Are you going to kill me, Winter?” she whispered, voice slurred and heart throbbing low in her gut. “It’s okay. I’ve earned it. What I did to you was awful, and you know what? I would have done worse. I would have killed you if it meant the difference between bringing Clint home and losing him. Maybe I would have fought against it at first, but in the end I would have done it and I will make no apology for that. If it meant bringing Clint home unhurt I would have done any number of unspeakable things to you, so I’ve earned my death.  
  
“ _But Alexei didn’t deserve to die._ ”  Her voice rose and took on a keening edge. “He’s one of us, Winter, he deserves a chance to start over just like us; he was innocent.”  
  
Shaking with rage, Bucky took a step forward and screamed, “ _YOU IDIOT!_ ”  
  
Steve stepped smoothly between them but it hardly mattered. There was no escaping raise voices. “I was there when Ivan brought him in, after you were carted off to have your baby in disgrace!” he shouted over Steve’s shoulder. “It was a hoax, Natalia, _Alexei never died!_ Do you remember what you did when you received word your husband was killed in action? You _begged_ to be given work avenging him! The wreck was a set-up, your marriage a sham, all to make you more dedicated to the cause! He never loved you!” He shook with rage while spouting what a stupid child she was, and Steve pulled him away to cool off.  
  
She didn’t get up from the floor until Tony offered her a hand, and it was painful. The lingering smell of smoke and the pain lancing through her gut brought her back to her witch-burning nightmare. Had that really only been a day ago? Getting up so quickly made her dizzy.  
  
Suddenly Tony was gasping, one arm around her shoulders to keep her upright and shouting for Bruce. When Natasha looked back down at the floor and saw the streak of blood, her knees buckled as cold dread flooded her senses.  
  
Every part of her, every nerve and muscle and fine little hair stood up and screamed, _No_.


	8. Chapter 8

“Am I losing the baby?” Natasha asked through bloodless, numb lips.  
  
Above her, Bruce tensed and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He and Tony picked her up off her feet and brought her to a gurney beside Clint’s. “Just lie back, stay calm, and drink some water; I don’t even _want_ to know how dehydrated you are right now. There might still be a chance that this is nothing, as long as you aren’t having any pain. Are you?” Still shirtless, his broad blunt fingertips gently palpated her abdomen and she hissed in pain; she felt like one big bruise.  
  
“ _Hey!_ ” she yelped as she was suddenly rocked back, flailing for purchase. Tony grabbed her shoulders to keep her still. Bruce had adjusted the gurney so her feet were elevated above her head, to hopefully slow down if not stop the bleeding and get some color back into her face. Then he gave her a cup of water to drink with a straw. There was still powder from a sleeping pill clinging to the sides, and normally that would have made her throw the water back in his face, but she was tired and too wound up to sleep on her own.  
  
When the water was gone she turned her head to look at Clint. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked, already feeling the drugs kick in.  
  
Bruce stepped around the gurney to continue cleaning the burnt skin around his ears. “This looks like his only major injury; we just need to get him to medical, fast,” he said, mumbling over the delicate work. “It looks like...like _hot pokers_ were...”  
  
His voice faded as she dropped into sleep.  
  
When she woke up, head fuzzy and body aching, she was weighed down by at least four blankets and had an IV running into the back of her hand. Slumped in a chair beside her bed was Sharon, dead asleep and softly snoring. “Sharon,” she rasped, trying to nudge the blonde without the IV tugging. Her friend jerked awake with a muffled sound. “Sharon, what happened? Is Clint okay? My...the baby?”  
  
“You’re fine, nothing’s broken or even sprained, though you are a little bruised,” Sharon reported, “in case you were wondering, you know, about your own well-being for a change!” Her hands flexed as if she were dying to wrap them around Natasha’s shoulders and shake her. “You did not miscarry, your baby’s doing well, it was just spontaneous bleeding brought on by stress, _malnourishment_ , and _dehydration_. It’s not uncommon. You need to be on bed rest for a few weeks to make sure the bleeding stops.”  
  
She took a deep breath to process that. “And Clint? He’s okay?” she asked.  
  
Sharon’s hand finally closed around hers, being careful of the IV. “He’s expected to recover from his superficial injuries, but there was some pretty extreme damage to his ears. Petrovitch, he...he burned his ear drum and canal, and seriously damaged some vital organs in the inner ear. Tony flew in a specialist who repaired what he could, but Clint lost...about sixty percent hearing in one ear, and eighty in another. If given enough time to heal and barring any complications he’ll be able to wear hearing aids, but it could be a few weeks to a few months before that can even be considered.  
  
“He’s _alive_ , Natasha,” she firmly said when Natasha’s face drained of color. “Who knows how much longer he would have survived if you hadn’t shown up when you did? Rest. You’ll be able to go home tomorrow, but you need to stay in bed. Only getting up to pee and bathe. _Baths_ , not showers. You hear me? Natasha, I’m serious, this is important.”  
  
“Sure, yeah, whatever,” Natasha shook her head. “Can I see Clint? Is he awake? How long has it been since Banner drugged me?”  
  
The corner of Sharon’s mouth quirked up. “He didn’t; it was a placebo. It’s been about nine hours and Clint only just got out of surgery. Besides, you aren’t supposed to be getting up anyway! You can see him when he’s discharged. Or Skype!” she yelped, sitting up. “Skype is awesome for stuff like this! You can type, he can talk, it’s great!”  
  
Sighing, Natasha laid back against the pillows and kneaded her brow with one hand. “Fine,” she dismissed and rolled over to her side so her back was to Sharon. “I’m sorry I shot at you.”  
  
“I know you are,” replied Sharon, stroking Natasha’s hair only once.  
  
She kept on her side until Sharon left. Then she rolled back to face the ceiling and crossed her hands delicately over her stomach. Her baby was alive. Clint was alive. She honestly hadn’t expected to bring them both back, and yet here she was. Thinking of Bucky made her want to hide under the covers, knowing what she did to him was unforgivable, but she wasn’t sorry. She felt not a single shred of regret for saving her husband’s life.  
  
Wondering whether that was a good or bad thing kept her up half the night.  
  
By noon the next day she was back at the tower, Bruce hovering over her like a rain cloud to make sure she remembered to eat and didn’t stay on her feet for too long. She had to sleep in the guest bedroom until the master room was put back to rights, still covered and stinking of paint. Being on bed rest felt like being stranded at sea. The only times she left her boundaries were to get wet, and she was frequently tossing and turning like a fish. Not to mention she was frequently vomiting. Poor Bruce was honoring his promise to take care of her, sacrificing precious time with his own family to make sure she wasn’t left lying in her own sick.  
  
Twelve days into her six-week sentence, she woke up to Clint standing in the door. Pale, swaying, the scars around his ears still pink, but altogether alive. Natasha sat up with her back against the headboard. They watched each other with the stark silence growing thinner and heavier every moment. How could she say all the things dancing on the tip of her tongue when they would literally fall on deaf ears?  
  
“Can you read my lips?” she was about to ask, but he slammed the bedroom door closed before she had the chance.  
  
Her heart sank.  
  


* * *

  
  
Clint had known how to read lips since he was seven years old. Sometimes he and Barney would have to go out into the back yard while Mom and Pop fought, and it was his job to keep a watch to know when they could go back inside. It was especially important in the winter, so he made himself learn fast. It wasn’t always a foolproof skill, but it came in handy in times of trouble.  
  
Times, particularly, like these.  
  
The first thing he’d wanted to see upon waking up in medical was Natasha, scared and unhappy but in one piece. Instead he woke up to Steve, scared and unhappy but happy to see him alive. He hadn’t known if Clint could read lips, so he wrote everything down at first.  
  
 _You’ve been badly injured, 60% deaf in one ear and 80% in the other, but you’re expected to be back to full functionality with the help of hearing aids._  
  
 _The people who hurt you are gone._  
  
 _Peter Parker will be filling in for you on the team._  
  
 _Natasha’s on bed rest, but she and the baby are okay._  
  
The last one made Clint shoot up straight, or at least try to, but his head throbbed all the way down to his shoulders and he fell back with a groan. Sentence by sentence he wrenched the whole story out of Steve, the super soldier getting more nervous and shaky by the minute, and by the end Clint thought he might be sick. He couldn’t believe that his wife, his pregnant wife whom he had begged not to put herself in danger, threw herself into the line of fire to save him, even though she ultimately could have helped the team without going in.  
  
He was furious. His entire recovery was spent in a silent, stewing rage that made his team and doctors tiptoe around him. Since he couldn’t hear and barely trusted himself to speak, there was no vent for his anger, and all he wanted was his bedridden wife so he could shake sense into her.  
  
That was when Steve stepped in and reminded him that she was complying with the orders to remain in bed, she was keeping hydrated and fed, and she was just as terrified as him, possibly moreso.  
  
“When we thought you were dead, something inside of her broke,” he said. “We all saw it. When we all thought you died a part of her died with you. As soon as there was evidence you might be alive, it was all she could think about. Don’t say you wouldn’t have reacted the same way because we know you better than that.”  
  
He was inexplicably calmed by that. Maybe Steve was right, maybe he was being too hard on Natasha. But when he was allowed to go home, when Steve helped him up the elevator, when he passed Bruce in the hall and got a hug to welcome him back, when he stood in the guest bedroom door and saw Natasha looking completely wrecked, he knew that this wasn’t over. She was covered in bruises, there were scabs on her face and the backs of her knuckles; when she sat up to get a better look at him his heart jumped into his throat and his eyes stung.  
  
Even if she weren’t pregnant he would have been angry. He begged her not to put herself in danger for him but she did it anyway. It didn’t even occur that he might do the same thing. _Would_ do the same thing. He would have fought his way through a wall of flaming Doombots if it meant keeping Natasha out of harm’s way. If it meant saving her life. Losing his hearing was traumatic and frankly awful, but he would have gladly given up his ears and eyes and tongue for Natasha.  
  
When she opened her mouth to speak he slammed the door. He couldn’t face her, not when he was this angry and confused, so he set up camp on the couch instead.  
  
How could he possibly wrap his mind around what it took for a person to endanger not only their life but the life inside of them, when he would never be able to do what Natasha was doing? Couldn’t feel what Natasha felt? If he were somehow thrown into a firefight with their baby on his hip, with every chance to get out but knowing, deep down, that Natasha was on the other side and he had critical information necessary to save her, but could kill himself and their baby in the process, what could he do?  
  
 _Save the baby. Natasha can take care of herself._  
  
But Natasha was unconscious and tied up and drugged, just like him.  
  
 _Let the team handle it_.  
  
The team had no idea who or what had her, but he did.  
  
 _So tell them_.  
  
But they still had no idea where she was being held and explaining wasted precious time.  
  
The circle spun on and on for hours. Clint stared up at the ceiling all night as he thought about it. There was no easy solution, nothing was black and white, and the longer Clint thought the more confident in his skills he became. He could do it. He could fight and protect his baby; he was a good enough shot.  
  
And Natasha was good enough too. She fought and the baby was still alive.  
  
The next morning he got up early, stretched his aching muscles, and shuffled into the guest bedroom to crawl into bed beside Natasha. She rolled over, mumbled something he couldn’t decipher, then shot up and snapped her eyes open. They watched each other in the half-light for several moments before she reached and softly touched the space under his ear. The burns were still healing, tender, but he let her touch. She needed this. They both did.  
  
She licked her lips and said, “I’m pregnant.”  
  
The furrowing in his brow that he didn’t know was there smoothed out. “I...know,” he said. He spoke carefully now that he couldn’t hear himself, every syllable and consonant measured and pristinely enunciated. Or at least he thought.  
  
“No,” she shook her head, fingers splaying across his cheek. With the other hand she scrabbled behind her and returned with her phone, showing him the date.  
  
Their two weeks were up.  
  
The tip of Natasha’s nose turned red, which was how he knew she was going to cry, that was always how it started because she was trying so hard not to. They knew each other’s tells like the back of their own hands. She dropped her phone to put a hand on either side of his head, holding him in place, struggling not to get emotional even while he dissolved into a mess in front of her.  
  
“I’m not sorry,” she blurted out. The only reason Clint knew what she was saying with her mouth distorting against tears was because he knew her so well. Natasha sniffed hard, licked her lips, and regained control of her features. “I know you’re mad at me, and I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but you just don’t...you didn’t _get it_ and I didn’t get a chance to explain that I can’t...” She pulled back to knead at her eyes.  
  
He cupped her jaw in both hands and smiled so hard it made his lips hurt, but she shook her head to stop him stopping her and kept talking. “It’s not that I couldn’t raise a baby without you,” she explained. “I think I could. But I don’t _want to_. You and I, we could have made another baby if I lost this one, but I can’t make another _you_ , okay? And I don’t want this with anyone but you, _okay?_ So I am _not_ sorry.”  
  
“Okay,” Clint said, and her eyes widened. “Okay. You’re not sorry. You’re not sorry, I’m not sorry either, I still love you, and we’re having a baby. Sounds like a happy ending to me.”  
  


* * *

  
  
And that, for some reason, was what made her break down. “But you can’t hear me!” She lurched forward and hid her eyes in Clint’s shoulder. Not being sorry didn’t change the fact that her husband going deaf almost definitely felt like her fault. Even if it wasn’t at her hand it was the hand of the man who made her, the man who had been acting in the effort of recapturing her. “You can’t hear me. You won’t hear me for weeks.” He didn’t even know what she was saying now, when he couldn’t see her face, and it was her fault.  
  
It was still early, so they crawled beneath the covers and went back to sleep, this time wrapped around each other for Bruce to find when he brought a bowl of cereal for Natasha an hour later. “Oh, _good,_ ” he sighed with relief. He handed over the bowl and practically sprinted down to the penthouse to be with his own family for a while. Natasha shook with laughter until Clint woke up, and they shared her cereal for breakfast.  
  
They both had trouble sleeping at night before Clint was taken, but it only got worse when he was stripped of his hearing. He repeatedly jerked awake through the night, convinced there was a threat he just couldn’t hear coming. Nightmares kept creeping up on Natasha when she least expected it, flashes of memory from her childhood, visions of what could have happened to her or her baby in the fight, all of it surging around the fore of her mind until she woke up gasping.   
  
But the bruises and scrapes faded. Clint’s surgery scars paled. They spent her bed rest learning sign language so they could talk without speaking. Her stomach grew and she started feeling flutters of movement, subtle as secrets in the pit of her belly. They couldn’t be felt from the outside yet, so Clint dove enthusiastically into more research to make up for it.  
  
“It’s about the size of an avocado now, that’s nuts,” he reported on one of the last days of bed rest, thumbing through the pages of _Pregnancy for Dummies_. He was still talking a little too loud until he could be fitted for his hearing aids. “We can know the gender in like two weeks, isn’t that _nuts?_ That seems kinda nuts to me.”  
  
“You keep mentioning nuts, are you hoping for a boy?” Natasha signed with a grin.   
  
He shoved his pillow in her face. “It’s a turn of phrase, dummy. But...a boy wouldn’t be bad,” he admitted. “And neither would a girl. Aw, Nat, can we talk about names yet?”  
  
Lying back, feeling the baby shift and pressing her hand softly over the sensation, Natasha smiled. Even bed-bound with her deaf husband, she was happy. The bedroom was their private bubble of space where nothing else mattered. Making sure he saw, she nodded. He flopped back like a little kid at a slumber party, propping himself up on an elbow to face her.  
  
“I still like Penny,” he argued.  
  
She rolled her eyes. “I want to give it a Russian name. But the middle name can be whatever you want,” she told him, and he beamed like she’d just handed him the keys to the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left! Are you excited? Because I'm excited!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is at all interested in my trivia, the song that mostly drove the muse for this story was "In Our Bedroom After the War" by Stars.

The day she was finally allowed to be on her feet for longer than five minutes at a time was the same day that Tony put the final touches on, “The one and only pair of hearing aids Stark Industries will ever produce,” as he put it. “Well...at least until you bust these doing something stupid and need a new pair.” He helped Clint put the aids in and showed him how to switch them on before slipping a thin black metal bracelet around his wrist.  
  
“I got the idea for this from Petrovitch’s suit,” explained Tony, shaking Clint’s wrist. “Only take it with you on missions or you could go into sensory overload.”  
  
Frowning, Clint looked down at the bracelet. “What is it?”  
  
Tony grinned at Bruce and Natasha, who were there for technical and moral support. “Guys, keep it down really low. Like, try not to _breathe_ , and Clint, fasten together the ends of your bracelet at the eyelets.”  
  
Clint did as he was told, squeezing the bracelet until the ends were tight together, and nearly swore out loud. Not only could he hear, but he could hear _everything_. Natasha’s hairs brushing against one another when she moved her head. A fly buzzing in the other room. Blood rushing through his own veins. The hum of Tony’s arc reactor like feedback from a microphone. Pepper and Maria laughing three floors down. Their heartbeats were clear as bells, and underneath them, something smaller that almost completely floored Clint.  
  
“I-” Holy shit, voices were like thunder. He would be able to hear a whisper a hundred feet away. Clint pulled the ends of the bracelet apart and shook his head like a wet dog as the world immediately went back to normal. The normal he'd known before his kidnapping. Natasha was watching him with wide, anxious eyes. “I think I could hear the baby’s heartbeat,” he said, stunned.  
  
The others beamed at him. “Just don’t watch a movie while that’s activated or your head might explode,” Tony advised him with a pat on the shoulder.  
  
He turned to Natasha. “Say something,” he pleaded. “Say anything.”  
  
For a long moment she thought, trying to think of the perfect first words to hear from her since his kidnapping. I love you was too cliche. Maybe some code? Or another language? Another apology would only exasperate him, and yet despite the promise to restore his hearing she had still felt unerringly responsible for everything that happened.  
  
“Katerina for a girl,” she said before she’d even finished thinking it over. “And Vanya for a boy. I’ve decided. We can call them Kate and John if you want to, good sturdy Iowa farmboy names, and you can teach them how to shoot and I’ll teach them how to fight, because even though you’re good at hand-to-hand I’m better. They won’t have to be like us, they won’t be damaged and afraid to close their eyes at night. They’ll go to high school and get into fights and fall in love like normal people. We will be the most terrifying in-laws.” She shook her head, laughing at her husband’s blank face. “You _can_ hear me, right?” she asked.  
  
A grin split his face as he pulled her into his arms. “I thought I forgot your voice. Oh my god, I _love_ you.” Over her head, he said to Tony, “Thanks for the new ears, Iron Maiden.”  
  
“Don’t mention it, Carnitas. Now come on, guys, get your asses moving, there’s a party waiting downstairs.”  
  
The elevator doors opened to the popping of Steve pulling out a champagne cork and Sharon calling hello. Agent Torres, Clint's new field partner who had kept him a lot of company in the hospital while Natasha was laid up, practically ran over and crushed them both in a hug. "Mom and Dad are back!" he happily declared. "Natasha, are you coming back to work soon? Because I have this replacement handler who's practically a dinosaur, man, dude's ancient! Missing my bro's bad enough without you being outta the mix!"  
  
He clapped Clint on the shoulder and beamed at them. Even if he was two years older than Clint he still called them Mom and Dad. A lot of agents did behind their backs, actually, but the nicknames weren't degrading or presumptuous, like they were old or soft; they came with respect. Natasha and Clint had been through a lot more than most agents, and their experience was valued rather than shuffled away.  
  
"I thought I had to be investigated before I was allowed back," Natasha frowned. Agent Hill had visited while she was laid-up to get her version of events. Even if Fury believed her, even if no one had been hurt, any signs of insubordination in a government agency had to be looked into.  
  
Torres shrugged. "Dunno. Word around the rumor mill is that Fury met up with Legal, Legal met with Medical, and they're settling. Once they all knew the circumstances, the people in Medical decided not to press any charges," he explained. “But I dunno, they might hold onto the investigation anyway.”  
  
Across the room, Natasha met Sharon's eye and smiled. Her friend smiled back, very pointedly adjusting her hair so Natasha could see the ring on her finger, then made an exaggerated goofy happy face with her tongue sticking out. No wonder Steve looked so thrilled and was drinking even though he couldn't get drunk. Natasha was happy for them.  
  
 _Flash!_ Natasha blinked through the haze in her eyes and saw Peter sheepishly put his camera down to hang on its strap. "Sorry, Natasha, I thought I turned that off," he said, and she put an arm around his shoulders. Clint and Torres had vanished across the room to play with Maria.  
  
“You keep taking pictures of me.”  
  
“Well, we spiders gotta stick together.” He leaned up and kissed her cheek with a dopey grin; she gave him a playful shove. “What? Come on, I like taking pictures of you, so sue me! I’m a photographer, I can appreciate a good aesthetic when I see it. Besides, you need more pictures. Every time I go to your apartment it's like you've just been staying in a hotel all this time. When's your birthday, again? You're just gonna get a stack of framed pics to hang around from me, spoiler alert."  
  
Natasha laughed softly to herself and told him her birthday was December 14th, because she didn't remember her real one. It was the day Clint pinned her to a dirty alley wall like a butterfly, ninety pounds, sick with pneumonia but still deadly as a viper, and offered her a second chance. It was as good as a birthday anyway. She realized her error when Peter's eyebrows shot up; December 14th was only a few weeks away. "Tell no one," she warned him.  
  
Looking over her shoulder, Peter's eyes suddenly widened and he muttered an excuse before hurrying away. Natasha didn't have to turn to know who was behind her.  
  
"Winter."  
  
"Don't call me that," sighed Bucky. "You know that's not who I am."  
  
She turned and met his eye with an unconvinced look. "You wanted to kill me. You would have done, and you tried to," she pointed out.  
  
It was only when Bucky stepped in close that Natasha remembered he was almost a foot taller than her, wearing thick-soled boots and practically towering over her head. "You remember as well as I do how it feels to be locked in the freezer, only you were lucky enough to be put through it a few times. I didn't have a serum to slow down my aging. I'm still young because of how many times they put me away, and you were going to do it again! It was a reaction, I was protecting myself, I couldn't help it!"  
  
"You shot with the intent to kill me. What would you have done if Tony and Bruce didn't get between us on the Quinjet?"  
  
Bucky tried to take another step toward her, arms outreached, but Natasha stepped swiftly to the side and pulled him down with his own momentum.  
  
" _Hey!_ " A chorus of alarmed yelling rang out from across the room. Steve was pulling Bucky to his feet and away from her while Clint and Sharon rushed to her side. "Natasha, you just got off of bed rest; you need to _stop throwing people_ ," Sharon tried to warn her, but she couldn't hear anything over her heart pounding and ragged breaths.  
  
Looking at Winter, really _looking_ and seeing something buried deep in his psyche snap in two, she remembered when they were forced together by the Red Room, when they would finish a mission and secretly make love so violently that they emerged bloody and damaged, and felt something in her break too. What they had couldn't have been called love. It was a constant struggle for power over the other. It was war. Had it carried on any longer, it would have ended with one of their deaths, of that Natasha was certain. The Black Widow had been preparing for it before the explosion that ended so much of the Room. So had Winter, most likely.  
  
She could see the war hiding in his eyes now, and revulsion crawled up her throat.  
  
"I _know_ how it felt to be locked in cryo! _I know_ ," she shouted at him. "Why else do you think I wanted to go back for the Red Guardian?"  
  
" _That's what I've been trying to tell you!_ " Bucky howled from where he'd been dragged to the other end of the room. "I went back for his body and the chambers were standing empty! There was _no sign_ of a body anywhere!"  
  
The room went still and silent as Natasha reeled from the news. Bucky disentangled himself from Steve's hold to come closer. "I don't know how far back this goes, Natasha, but the Red Room, or whatever's left of them, wants you dead. They sent me first, and who do you think built Ivan that body? If he failed, the task would have gone to Shoskatov, and now his body’s missing. Don’t think he won’t be right around the next corner to carry on where Ivan left off. You’re putting everyone you care about in danger just by being around them!”  
  
The world melted away as Bucky's warning danced through her mind. It was true. Everything the Red Room had done to have her skill set at their disposal came at the expense of those she cared about. Her parents, her daughter, her husband, her unborn child, all lost or endangered at their hands. Her hands.  
  
Clint snapped her free of those thoughts with a hand brushing her waist. Bucky was gone with whatever levity there had been to the party. "Whatever you're thinking, Tash, cut it out right now," he scowled.  
  
And she tried. Natasha had never tried harder to push anything from her mind, and was able of going days, sometimes weeks without thinking about it, but always, always it came back to her. Every time she touched the scars around Clint's ears and watched him wince with remembered pain, every time her eyes passed over the rosewood box containing Rose's lock of hair, every time the baby inside of her kicked or turned serenely over she remembered.  
  
As soon as it was relatively safe to do so, Natasha went to her doctor and had tests done to detect any defects or illnesses in the baby caused by the anti emetics; when they came back clean she locked herself in one of her secret places and cried until she hurt her throat. Every time she left the tower she was unable to stop looking over her shoulder, watching for the next disaster to find her. She may as well have been twelve years younger, freshly salvaged from the KGB, waiting for the hand that fed her to strike again. There was no escape, no salvation, not until the threat was gone.  
  
Eight days before her due date, Clint was on his last assignment before going on paternal leave, expected home before midnight, when Natasha woke up with the worst backache since the beginning of her pregnancy. It faded slightly when she rolled onto her other side, but as soon as there was some relief she was walking with as much dignity that could be mustered toward the elevator. Everything ached. She could barely move without grimacing most days, she was swollen and ungainly, had never felt so graceless, but Clint insisted she was beautiful.  
  
"It comes with the whole 'sacred vessel' mindset," Pepper told her weeks before. "You're carrying his baby; no matter how swollen and saggy you might feel he still looks at you and sees Aphrodite incarnate. Take advantage of it. He'll do anything you ask if you sound pathetic enough, all of the guys will."  
  
Bruce, in fact, treated her like a concerned older brother might and it was oddly comforting. Combined with his medical experience, she was well taken care of for any dietary needs, and almost overnight Clint knew exactly where to press on her back to relieve tension. Thor literally treated her like royalty as soon as he heard the news, ferrying to her gifts of jewels and weapons from Asgard.  
  
"I told my father that Midgard's bravest and fiercest warriors had such joyous news, and he bade me extend this favor to you, to strengthen the kinship between our realms," he explained as he presented them with a veritable caravan of gifts, such as rich silken swaddling clothes for the baby and jeweled combs (including compartments to lace the teeth with poison) for Natasha among them.  
  
Now, though, she had no use for pretty combs or gold daggers. Halfway down to the penthouse another lance of pain shot through her back, and she had to grip the handrail along the back of the car and bend as near to double as she could reach. Even when the doors slid open she couldn't bring herself to move. Mind clouded by the fog, she barely heard Bruce approaching or calling her name. Then he touched her elbow and she snapped back to attention. "Natasha, breathe," he told her. She sucked in a breath as the pain peaked and started to ebb. "Are you having contractions? You should have called me instead of coming down."  
  
"It's not labor, my back is just killing me," she complained, a little breathless as Bruce guided her in to sit down. "Can you help?"  
  
“Of course, I’d be happy to.”  
  
Fifteen minutes later she clenched her jaw as Bruce’s hands suddenly made no difference on how badly her back hurt. A soft sound crawled up her throat and he pulled away. “You know back pain can be--”  
  
The pain flared and she shook her head. “Put your hand back! Oh my god!” she complained as the pain wrapped around from her back to the front of her abdomen and squeezed. Immediately Bruce replaced his hands and pressed with the heel of his palm.  
  
“Natasha?” he said once she’d been able to relax again. “I’m pretty sure you’re in labor.”  
  
It was the longest day of her life. Clint only made it with an hour to spare before his daughter was born, bursting into the tower’s medical bay covered in ashes and still clutching his bow. By that point Natasha had been too inwardly focused to even be angry with him and was only relieved that he was on time.  
  
The moment the doctor said, “Go,” she gripped his calloused hand and pushed until she thought she was going to die before anything happened. At least two hours passed that way. It felt like she was being turned inside out and crushed like a tube of toothpaste, but then there was suddenly an enormous release and the baby, a bloody writhing mass, was laid shrieking on her chest. Gasping, Natasha wrapped her arms around her child and shuddered as Clint said, “Oh my god, oh my god, she’s here, oh my god,” into her hair.  
  
They named their daughter Katerina. Her middle name was Bishop, after someone Clint knew in the circus. He cut the cord binding her to Natasha, then he held his daughter as she cried and would openly admit later that he probably cried even harder. “Hey, Kate. Hi, baby girl,” he whispered as tiny pink fingers clenched in a fist around his thumb. His wife had already fallen asleep beside him.  
  


* * *

  
  
Natasha gave herself a month. A month to get back into fighting shape, for her milk to dry, to know her new daughter. There was nothing more extraordinary in the world than the sight of Katya nestled warm in the crook of her elbow. Natasha wanted to know everything about this child she made, every secret and whispered breath, every snuffle, every wide yawn, the brush of her coppery hair, her bleary eyes... Clint barely had time with her at all, Natasha was so enthralled. No one did unless she was training. Peter took pictures of them together and her heart felt fit to burst when he showed her the developed prints. Katerina looked like Rose.  
  
“Oh, she looks _just_ like you,” Pepper beamed with Maria in her lap. Biting her lip all the while, Natasha very carefully placed Katerina in the toddler’s arms. To be safe, Pepper made sure to brace them both while Natasha hovered.  
  
She shook her head and stared at the baby. “I don’t see it. I don’t see how she’s like me at all.”  
  
There was too much good in her. More good in an infant than ever there was in Natasha. A noise far off on another level of the tower made her insides quake. She was falling apart at the seams and didn’t know what to do.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Natasha?”  
  
Looking up from the tablet in her hands - showing her a live feed of Katerina sleeping in her crib - she met Sharon’s eye. “Hi,” she said, then looked down again.  
  
Sharon sat beside her on the sofa. “Clint asked me to come and check on you. He says you haven’t been sleeping,” she explained. A comforting hand smoothed down her back but she tensed, strung too tight, and kneaded a hand over her eyes.  
  
“I have a newborn, of course I’m not sleeping.”  
  
“Nor are you eating,” added Sharon pointedly. “You are, however, spending a lot of time training and brooding over the baby monitor. You _are_ taking it easy, right? You realize that you gave birth just over three weeks ago and your body’s still healing itself?”  
  
Natasha sighed but didn’t bother arguing with lies. She hadn’t been taking it easy even if she did know that her body needed more time than it used to. There was no Russian super serum to save her if she got an infection. Katya coughed in her sleep and Natasha’s hands spasmed around the tablet so she could look more closely.  
  
A hand closed around her wrist and the intensity of Sharon’s disapproval nearly burned her. “Natasha, look at me. I know you’re a new mom and things are pretty intense, but _you need to eat_. I will not have this discussion with you again, do you understand me? You're my best friend and I need you in one piece to be my maid of honor in a month. No excuses! Just put down the tablet for a few minutes; I’m making you a sandwich. Cripes. Come on, Romanov, I’m not your mother.”  
  
 _No, you aren’t, because I never had one_ , a deep-buried part of Natasha’s mind spoke up. But she didn’t speak again. There wasn’t anything she could say to explain how disjointed she felt.  
  
At night, when Clint took out his hearing aids and wrapped himself around her, she lie staring at the ceiling and wishing she could sleep. Every rustling of wind out the window made her snap to attention, convinced that Alexei was coming for her baby. She slid from between Clint’s arms and the soft sheets, and silently padded to the nursery to check on Katerina for the fifth time. Some mornings she woke up on the floor or in the rocking chair to Clint nudging her with a toe.  
  
Tonight, though, was different.  
  
“ _Ya lyublyu tebya vsegda_ ,” she whispered to Katya, rocking her in the dark and quiet on the 30th day since her birth. Something hot and tight wound its way up her throat and pushed free from her eyes. “Don’t let Daddy treat you too roughly. It’s alright to wear pink and be gentle if you want to, and if anyone says it’s un-feminist then they’re idiots who went to community college, and you shouldn’t listen to them. Listen to Aunt Sharon and take your medicine. Talk to her when you get your first period, not Pepper, Pepper won’t even know what to do when her own daughter menstruates, but Aunt Sharon’s a nurse and knows exactly what she’s doing.  
  
“If SHIELD offers you a place or training before you’re 18, don’t take it. Just don’t. Be a child for as long as you can. Those years are precious. Don’t play with the box on the mantel. And remember that I love you.”  
  
She kissed her daughter’s head and replaced her in the cradle before secreting back to the bedroom, where she silently dressed and tugged her bag free from under the bed. Even if she weren’t silent Clint wouldn’t have heard. She only have to be careful to tread lightly or he would feel the vibrations. In the kitchen she left him a note saying goodbye, and on the communal floor she left a note saying, _Look after them_.  
  
Then she slipped out into the city streets with her bag slung over one shoulder, red hair bright as a beacon in the pre-dawn light, and a gun on her hip. It was time to end the nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Natasha said "I will always love you," in Russian. I just wrote it phonetically according to Google Translate. )
> 
> We made it through another! Wow, this one was exhausting. I had no idea where it was going for a while, but everything finally settled right where I wanted it to, for the most part. Thanks to all of you who've been sticking with me through this, I really owe you one!
> 
> As of yet, I have no definite plans for a sequel, but that really isn't saying much, since I never intended to write THIS sequel. Or have the original story turn out longer than a one-shot. Also the fact that I started writing something that could be a sequel yesterday. This universe just won't let me go! You may or may not be hearing from me again soon!


End file.
